hi,
very away from linux for such a long time, i have forgotten where to edit the httpd.conf to use htaccess. i placed the .htaccess in top level of webserer, and made the following change.......
<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">
#
# Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
# or any combination of:
# Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
#
# Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
# doesn't give it to you.
#
# The Options directive is both complicated and important. Please see
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
# for more information.
#
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews -indexes

#
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
# Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
AllowOverride All

# I changed this to All from None
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

</Directory>

not sure if the is the right place or not. i have also restarted the server to let the changes take place. no effect as of yet.
thanks for any help,
bob

You should only change
AllowOverride All

what is the content of your
.htaccess file?

this is the contenst of my .htacces file, placed in the first level of my server directory, i added myself to test if it stopped me. does not seem to. sorry for the delay in response, but have been outa town.

order allow,deny
deny from 222.187.220.162
deny from 222.187.220.
deny from 222.187.
deny from pv.wantsfly.com
deny from 76.88.15.96
allow from all

<Files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>