This is a little trick I use a lot.

Quite often I am working on a website for a client that has an admin area. I like to give access to the admin area while I am still working on the front end design. This way the client can start adding products/content/whatever while I am building the actual website.

But of course, you don’t want the client to see your half-finished front end design. So get your IP address (if you don’t know how just visit http://www.whatismyip.com/) and add the following into your .htaccess file:

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 80.xxx.xxx.xxx

Where 80.xxx.xxx.xxx is your IP address. This will give a 403 forbidden to anyone accessing the site with anything other than that IP address. If you have multiple people working on the site simply add another line:

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 80.xxx.xxx.xxx
allow from 82.xxx.xxx.xxx

Keep in mind this method isn’t completely secure as IP addresses can be spoofed. However, for a quick and simple way of keeping a nosey client out you might find this ideal.