seeking mod_rewrite solution

I have a people-networking type site in which each user has
their own
profile page, with their user id encoded.  So, for example,
the web
address of their page might look like
"www.example.com/my_profile.php?user_id=fdjkhfh2489298
hf298h3s0dhfxj".
I want the users to be able to choose their own web address
that would
look like "www.example.com/Joel", and then when
they type in that
address, they are automatically redirected to their profile
page with
the more complex address.

I believe mod_rewrite is probably the best solution for
this?

Reading a little bit about mod_rewrite, I believe the rule I
want is
something like the following:


RewriteRule ^/(.*) /redirect_user.php?user_name=$1


So 2 simple questions:
  1) does this rule look like what I want?
  2) how do I install and hook up the module, and where do I
include
the rule, just right in the .htacess file?

I'm brand new to mod_rewrite, so any help would be
appreciated.


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