Antimidget

is it more efficent to load a text file from the server then a string from a Long Text field?

I am working of a project for uni and using mod_rewrite. The default conf file looks like this <Directory /home/*/public_html> AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit Options Indexes SymlinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNoExec ExecCGI </Directory> and my .htaccess file looks like this Options +FollowSymLinks +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch RewriteEngine on # pages RewriteRule ^(.*).htm$ ./template.php?page=$1 # Catalogue sub catagory RewriteRule ^shop/(.*)/(.*).htm$ ./template.php?page=catalogue&view=$1 # Single product display RewriteRule ^product/(.*)/(.*).html$ ./template.php?page=product&view=$1 [L] but for some reason if i have the line "Options +FollowSymLinks +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch" uncommented the folder the .htaccess is in doesn't show up and i can't access it but if i remove that line i get a 404 error saying template.php can't be found when its right there anyone know why this might be?