If you ever need to edit or create an .htaccess file, you can take a lot of the mystery out of the process by using the on-line .htaccess editor at http://www.htaccesseditor.com/en.shtml. This web site allows you to create an .htaccess file without needing to know any of the arcane formatting required. You just enter the type of access rules you want to apply and as you are typing, it creates the resulting .htaccess file in real time. It's very web 2.0. You can then copy the resulting file and put it on your web server directly to have the .htaccess rules applied on your server.