http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess.shtml

An htaccess file is a simple ASCII file, such as you would create through a text editor like NotePad or SimpleText. Many people seem to have some confusion over the naming convention for the file, so let me get that out of the way.

.htaccess is the file extension. It is not file.htaccess or somepage.htaccess, it is simply named .htaccess