[R] install.packages

[Jim Lemon]

I hope I will be pardoned for asking what may be a dumb question on this 
thread. Recently I noticed that when I tried my established method of adding 
a package to R (i.e. download the *.tar.gz file to a directory of similar 
files and INSTALL), I was no longer able to do this. I did eventually find 
the function install.packages() and it worked very nicely, thanks. However, 
I'd like to know if it is still possible to download packages from CRAN or 
other sites. For example, I run R on a little old laptop that has no Internet 
connection whatever, and it will be a bit of a problem keeping it up to date.

Jim