Just my .02, but it may be time for you to consider migrating to VB.net.
I have ton's of code for Vb.net VB2008 express
VB2010 express is the current version I believe.
I had to give up on using perl a few years ago
It was a bit of a learning curve, but not horrible since I already understand how to program in other languages.
It was a great move to learn to code in VB2008.