timeout and sockets example request??

[Ishwar Rattan]

In section 7.2 of Python library reference manual:

exception timeout 
This exception is raised when a timeout occurs on a socket which has had
timeouts enabled via a prior call to settimeout(). The accompanying value
is a string whose value is currently always ``timed out''. New in version 2.3.

I assumed that settimeout() is an attribute of newly created socket object,
but is not so!

What is the correct usage os settimeout(), getdefaulttimeout() and
setdefaulttimeout(seconds) [the last two also from the section 7.2]?

A python code fragemnt to show the usages will be appreciated.

-ishwar