First time Installing PHP

Hello everybody, I am new to PHP and need to install it in my account at my host server. This host has already PHP4 installed. But unfortunately, it is not compiled --with-curl[=DIR]. And I need cURL. BTW, can't say that I am very familiar with Unix OS. 1) The hostmasters says I must download my own source and compile my own version of PHP in my account. Fine. But is there another way to accomplish my goal of using cURL (or libcURL) from PHP without recompiling PHP. 2) I noticed that the lastest source at php.net is PHP 4.0.1pl2 Does this patch include the complete version or should it be applied to the full version PHP 4.0.1 Release Candidate 2 3) These sources are .gz files which can be decompressed by winzip. But is there an equivalent on Unix or do I have to download the zip file to my PC, decompressed and FTP everything to my account at my hostservice. I would rather move the bigfile alone and decompressed on Unix. I did the PC process for cURL and end up with all "rw" permissions on all files with no "x" when there should be. In fact is there a way to Telnet to my site and issue a Unix command that will automatically get the compressed source file from php.net Thanks for your help. Claude Cormier Ormetal Inc.