Hello James,
the easiest way - in my opinion - to protect the recommended website(s) with a password is to ask your provider for this possibility. I can show you here the menu of my German host (Passwortschutz > Password protection):
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Here an example of one of my websites, where I used my providers service. You can see what happens if you don't know the required details:
http://dala-laegret1963.de/AccBlocked/AccBlocked.php. There only these users who know the passwords can enter this website.
As you can see I didn't struggle to write the ".htaccess" file of myself, I used the provider's (ISP) service. The advantage is, that the two files (.htaccess and .htpasswd) are created simultaneously and systemconform. You will find this offer, I am sure, at your provider's website.
Dreamweaver has so too a very easy server-side authentication behaviors built-in... have you looked at those? (Server Behaviors --> Authenticate Users)
Hans-Günter
