I have created a patch that I hope can supersede this one. This patch
does some nice refactorings to test_timeout.py by encapsulating some
common code in a sockOperation method. Then that method is used to run
the function under test. It also implements tests for testSend,
testSendto and testSendall. Plus, (I think) it fixes a bug which (I
think) only happens when you access the internet from behind a web
proxy.

I think the patch is good but there were two problems with it so I
created a new one. First, it tries to filter out errors dealing with
timeouts from normal socket.error's. But the author forgot about args
with only one string as a value. Second, I do not like how the actual
assertion of the test is done in the tearDown method.

My patch fixes those problems, otherwise it is mostly identical to
this patch. It is #1677694 at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1677694&group_id=5470&atid=105470