Don't know if that code is standard (probably not, since it doesn't seem to work). But base64 is certainly a standard, which is documented here -- start at page 23.

Also, follow up on perlplexer's advice, if you can. Got a home directory, some disk space, and a shell prompt? download the MIME module for perl yourself, make a subdir in your home called "perl_modules", install the download there, then add "-I/home/you/perl_modules" on the shebang line of your perl script that uses the module. Perl will find it.

www.cpan.org will have some info and methods that will make this easy.