.htaccess Question

I was reading the forum and saw a few threads on .htaccess

I plan on protecting my blog and was hoping someone could give me a definitive answer about this.

It seems there is a problem with using a .htaccess file?

If I place a regular .htaccess file in the same directory as my WP site, do I just have to chmod it to .644 or is there something else that must be done to protect the blog with .htaccess?

Thanks for any help