Trying to password protect my site using .htaccess

I am not quite finished with my site and I want to password protect it so that no one sees any unfinished work. I am using Godaddy linux hosting and I could not figure how to password protect the whole site through some interface, so I decided to try password protecting it with .htaccess.
I uploaded a .htaccess file that included the following to my root folder:
AuthUserFile /absolutehostingpath/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "EnterPassword"
AuthType Basic

require valid-user

(with absolutehostingpath being my real absolute hosting path)

I then uploaded a .htpasswd file (with an encrypted password) to the root folder that looked something like this:
jim:heidHeAldkwIk

I keep getting a 500 Internal Server Error.
Just so you know I did upload the files using ASCII mode.

I don't have a clue what I'm doing wrong because I'm not much of a coder. Any help you can give me is very much appreciated.

Just put it in maintenance mode under your Zen cart configuration menu.

~Melanie

Hi nirvana10, maybe you can try password protection your site or the folder via Cpanel. Its works well for me. Good luck.