Caution .htaccess idiot at work

[selena]

I am officially frustrated to tears.

This is my scenario:

I need to be able to allow hotlinking of thumbs for a handful of TGP's. My thoughts were that I could make a directory inside my domain...rather like...

http://www.mydomain.com/shitIwanthotlinked/test.jpg

Inside the folder shitIwanthotlinked I would put the thumbs and a .htacess file. From everything I have read everywhere, I thought I could put

RewriteEngine Off

in the .htaccess file and life would be peachy. They could hotlink, I could use my partner accounts, and the whole world would fill with joy.

But I was oh-so-wrong.

I get my 404 error when I try it. I've also used some of those online testers, and they say my hotlink protection is working just fine and dandy. ~sighs~

Now, I have also read that I can add domains to my main? htaccess and then they would be able to hotlink. I was trying to avoid doing that, as every time I *look* at the htaccess in my root I seem to mess it up.

I am going to try my hosting company again tonight. I really, really like my hosts. This time I wasn't able to make their tech guy understand what I wanted to do. Or I wasn't understanding him, which is more likely.

In the iterim I thought I would ask here. I really need the most stress free way of making this happen, as I'm highly allergic to anything having to do with my server outside of uploading files.

[Ramster]

The best thing to do is buy another domain and have no htaccess on it and allow toplist banners, thumbs or whatever be hotlinked from that domain.

[selena]

More than willing to go that route, Ramster. The price of a domain is cheap compared to the headache I have now.

When I do that...well, let me backtrack a little and explain.

In my root, I have an htaccess file that is all that referrer stuff that I don't know what it really means. I just know that every time I buy a new domain, I have to add the domain to what is in root to allow galleries or whatever to be visible.

Then inside each directory I have something like this:

RewriteEngine on
#RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?dommedesires.com(/)?.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|bmp)$ - [F,NC]


So then, if I buy a new domain, would I just add it to my list in root, then *not* put the above gibberish in that directory?

I am sorry, I know I don't speak tech language very well. htaccess stuff is like going into the hardware store. I stand there with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look until someone takes pity on me.

~half teasing smile~

[selena]

~jumps up and down in glee~

It works! It works!

I can be hotlinked on my new domain!!!

Thanks, Ramster |bananna|