var http_request = false;
   function makePOSTRequest(url, parameters) {
      http_request = false;
      if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { // Mozilla, Safari,...
         http_request = new XMLHttpRequest();
         if (http_request.overrideMimeType) {
         	// set type accordingly to anticipated content type
            //http_request.overrideMimeType('text/xml');
            http_request.overrideMimeType('text/html');
         }
      } else if (window.ActiveXObject) { // IE
         try {
            http_request = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
         } catch (e) {
            try {
               http_request = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
            } catch (e) {}
         }
      }
      if (!http_request) {
         alert('Cannot create XMLHTTP instance');
         return false;
      }
      
      http_request.onreadystatechange = alertContents_timed;
      http_request.open('POST', url, true); /* http_request.open('GET', url + parameters, true); */
      http_request.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
      http_request.setRequestHeader("Content-length", parameters.length);
      http_request.setRequestHeader("Connection", "close");
      http_request.send(parameters);
	  document.getElementById('status').innerHTML = 'Please Wait...<br /><img style="margin-bottom: 10px;" src="i/loading.gif" alt="Talking To Twitter..." />';
   }

	function alertContents_timed(){
	    timeout = setTimeout("alertContents()", 3000);
	}

    function alertContents() {
      if (http_request.readyState == 4) {
         if (http_request.status == 200) {
            //alert(http_request.responseText);
            result = http_request.responseText;
            document.getElementById('status').innerHTML = result;            
         } else {
            document.getElementById('status').innerHTML = '<input name="buttonTwitter" id="buttonTwitter" class="submit" type="submit" value="" onclick="javascript:get(this.parentNode);"/><br />Please Try Again...';
            alert('There was a problem with the request.');
         }
      }
   }
   
   function get(obj) {
      var poststr = "newTweet=" + encodeURI( document.getElementById("newTweet").value ) +
                    "&twitter_username=" + encodeURI( document.getElementById("twitter_username").value ) +
                    "&twitter_password=" + encodeURI( document.getElementById("twitter_password").value );
      makePOSTRequest('request.php', poststr);
   }