desperately need help with running SSI on apache

[seff]

Hi,
ive been trying to run Server Side Includes on my apahce server for the past two weeks or so. i desperately need some help with it. i've read the SSI section in the apache manual, aswell as a few other tutorials and nothing seems to work.

here are the relevant lines in my httpd.conf:

LoadModule include_module modules/mod_include.so

<Directory />
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
AllowOverride All
</Directory>

AddType text/html .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml

i have a very simple file, index.shtml in my /htdocs dir. its contents:

<!--#echo var="DATE_LOCAL" -->

when i run "localhost/index.shtml" i get a blank page on my Ffox/IE.

i also tried running it in a subdir that has a .htaccess file in it containing:

AddType text/html .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes

didnt work. when i tried that last bit on a server of one of my websites it works fine and shows the date.

i would very much appreciateany any help here!