[twitter-dev] No clue "Invalid request"

[Dutch Elm]

I'm hoping someone can help me.

Getting this error when trying to update to twitter via 'http://
twitter.com/direct_messages/new.json'

{"request":"/direct_messages/new.json","error":"Invalid request."}

I'm using PHP with a script i copied from the web which is suppose to
monitor a server and update the twitter account if the server goes
offline.

here's the code i copied from the web:


<?php

// Specify the target URL in your server
$targetUrl  = 'http://YOUR_SERVER_URL';

// Specify what the response is from the server
$targetText = 'Hello from Daredevil';

// We will be using cURL for fetching the content
$ch = curl_init();

// Set the params
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $targetUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

// Get the response
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

// Are things in right place ?
if ($response == $targetText) {
    die('Site is up and running!');
}

// Nope, so here are the sender's twitter info
$username = 'SENDER_TWITTER_USERNAME';
$password = 'SENDER_TWITTER_PASSWORD';

// Receiver's twitter username
$receiver = 'RECEIVER_TWITTER_USERNAME';

// Alert message to send
$message = 'Daredevil is not responding, please fix ASAP!';

// The Twitter API address (new direct message)
$url = 'http://twitter.com/direct_messages/new.json';

// We will be using cURL for this
$ch = curl_init();

// Set the params
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "$url");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "user=$receiver&amp;text=
$message");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$username:$password");

// Send the request
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

// Success or failure
if (!empty($response)) {
    echo 'Recipient has been notified.';
} else {
    echo 'No response from twitter.';
}
?>