For starters, all people new to Perl should be made aware of strict.pm. This is a Perl Module that ensures your program runs smoothly with regard to Scoping. You should also read up on use warnings; or the -w switch, which basically adds an extra level of integrity to your program.

Also on your filehandle call, you should always finish the statement off with or die "Could not open $fh : $!\n"; The die function enables error handling, storing the error value in the special variable $!. So your code should now look like

open CHAT, ">>../chatty2.html" or die "Could not open file : $!\n";
# your script will fail if you can't open the file, and print the reas
+on why
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Finally, enjoy your time on Perlmonks. It's a very nice place.

Azatoth a.k.a Captain Whiplash