URL translation like mod_rewrite

Hi all, My hosting company won't let me use rewrite rules in my Apache configuration files, and told me to use "the php header() functions and a .htaccess file" instead of the rewrite rules. I don't know php and I'm looking over some php help files right now, but I found this list and was hoping someone can point me in the right direction. Or tell me that this won't work. What I want to do is have a visitor to my web site enter a userid after the domain name, and have apache or php grab the userid and send it to a script. Something like this: http://domain.name/denny => http://domain.name/cgi-bin/script.cgi?userid=denny Can this be done with php? I already have another page with a login form that will send someone to the script. For marketing reasons, I don't want login forms or other ways of getting them there. I'm assuming the use of the .htaccess will involve the normal popup box asking for a userid/password. Can that be avoided? Thanks Denzil --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes