Apache, permissions...?

I think I may have broken something...

I wanted to set the iMac's Apache up, forwarded port 80 on the router, System Prefs => Sharing => Web Sharing on.

Skipping a lot of the hair-tearing, the SysPrefs pane says my computer's website is http://192.168.1.24/, click on it and Safari opens with an appropriate page.

It also says my personal website is http://192.168.1.24/~[my username]/

Click on it and Safari opens with:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /~[my username]/ on this server.

It used to work... back around Leopard 10.5.4, now on 10.5.8, and all I can think of that I've changed is my login password.

I've checked all the permissions down from the root directory, the only thing I can see that might be odd is that "System" doesn't have any explicit permissions below the Users folder, but then again, "Everyone" has read access...

Suggestions welcome please

What happens if you omit the tilde?

In reply to a post by john2007:

What happens if you omit the tilde?

Not Found

The requested URL /[username]/ was not found on this server.

I think the tilde is a signal to Apache to look in the /users/[username]/sites/ folder on the default drive.

Have a look here, Bill. The last bit is relevant to your problem.

Cheers for that, I'll give it a try.

Odd that I didn't have to do that when I first used Apache (over a year ago now), I suspect Apple changed something in an update somewhere...