pretty link problem

Hi,

My problem is the following: I have a site setup with a few pages. It is still under construction but works.
I wanted to change the default : https://fittmama.freevar.com/?p=123 to anything else (as I found out).
First tried to do something like: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/

Now when I change it to that format, wordpress says, it could not alter the .htaccess file.

it said it did not have the rights, even more, there was no such file on my ftp.

I changed it back to default and it still worked.

So after reading many advice, I have created one (just opened notepad pasted the lines wordpress gave me and save it as .htaccess, is it the right way?)
uploaded gave the the 777 rights, but let wordpress upload the content.
And it did, but the pages still dont work.
I have been reading many post on this but there are so many things I should check I dont even know where to start. (if it is my ftp that is not suitable, if it is the template, is it language that makes it impossible etc).
What happened once is I have seen the right link in the url window, but the pages were not linked to them.
Maybe it means something else then.
Please if anyone could help I would be glad.

Thanks