When trapped behind a firewall that for some reason blocks PPM, I did two things. First I bought the ActiveState CDROM which is, in itself, a local PPM repository.

But of course, that only holds for the ActiveState repository, which is by no means complete. For certain other packages I built a small, local PPM by downloading select items from Randy Kobes PPM repository at U Winnipeg. To get what I needed from there I just browsed with MSIE and clicked to download each *.ppd and the *.zip. Then I had to edit the paths on the *.ppd files.

It took a few trys at building packages to know what all I needed. And that part was mildly tedious. But it was only for a few crypto items not in ActiveState's PPM. So it's not so many. Then I did likewise to get the GD package from Lincoln D Stein's PPM.

Those few steps in combination (CDROM and manual aquisition) were fairly painless and did all that I needed.

Gan Uesli Starling
Kalamazoo MI USA