syphilis has some great advice. I would add that since you are on ActiveState 5.10, there is now a GUI on ppm. Just type "ppm" at the command prompt without any command (like install), the GUI will start. Find Tk and click on it to mark it for installation, then "run selected actions". Anyway I recommend this GUI interface as being easy to use. Of course the previous command line I/F still works.

Everything you need is on the default repository, in the future if you need other repositories (like bribes), go into preferences and you can add repositories, example bribes is in a convenient click item. But you again all that you need is in the default repository. ActiveState has a special module format, .ppd. Installing a module from CPAN can get more complicated than the above.

I can't tell if you are having proxy or firewall trouble or not. syphilis has the right pointer for that.