Did you try the code from this link? It gets Google home page every 10 seconds.
Change the network settings to yours, and the server variable to your server ip. Load your home page first. See how that does. Then try the php page.
edit: corrected spelling.
Is your web server using virtual hosting? If so, the "Host:" parameter must be correct. If it is "www.example.com", then "example.com" may not work.