Expansion of the article for GP

private areas.AMidgley Top tip Experienced users only How to create private areas on the web If you want to offer practice information to selected viewers, you can use the security features in the web. Using a .htaccess file, set up a username and password for the directory on the web-server, and tell your selected viewers what they are. The address, such as http://myusername:mypassword@www.defoam.net/mysecrets/ , can be bookmarked, or put in a link just like any other. This is rather tricky and requires experience of these kinds of files. If in doubt, as your web expert to find about it. Independent of this you can restrict the addresses from which people can connect to the directory. This is a bit more complicated, however, since everyone from NHS Net appears as though they come from a small range of addresses. You could lock them out or give them free access and vice versa for the rest of the world. This is more use when you have a fixed address, which companies tend to have, but doctors at home often don't. If you are serious about privacy, consider using secure HTTP, https:// which requires talking to your ISP. Adrian Midgley, Exeter