Web applications need to respond quickly to user actions. From a usability point of view, anything that takes longer than a second or two will distract the user from the task at hand. This is a hands-on Perl and JavaScript coding session that explains how to span a background daemon process from a Perl web application and how to check on progress using Ajax calls. The example is done with code of a TWiki backup & restore plugin, however it is generic enough to be used in any web application programming environment.