new to .htaccess

need help!

[Certyfied Dyme]

okay, i was at websoup.org and somewhere i found what I thought i needed. Basically what im looking for is any type of code that prompts people to enter a password to view my page. I thought that would be a simple code lol. But anyways..it sent me to some .htaccess place where i entered a password and screen name that it asks the users for when they enter my page. I have a geocities free page, and when i load the text files to my directory, it says not valid filename. What should i do, and is there a better code for what im looking for

[jdMorgan]

Certyfied Dyme,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]!

I doubt that you'll be able to do this on GeoCities - they generally restrict what you can do, so they don't have to spend any money on support. Free hosting accounts are not for 'serious' work.

But I guess you can try it. Take a look at Apache mod_auth [httpd.apache.org] and at the Apache authentication documentation [httpd.apache.org].

Jim