Setup: Mac OS X, Drupal 5.7, Cyberduck 2.8.3 and GoDaddy Linux Hosting.
I had no idea that using a Mac would create this huge problem. When I was trying to enable clean URL's I was getting an error page. I tried all the tricks (waiting an hour for the server to reset with the new settings, adding a trailing slash to the clean url, etc etc). Nothing was working. I searched and searched to find the .htaccess file to manually change, blaming GoDaddy for now allowing me to do this on their server; all futile, because I NEVER UPLOADED THE .htaccess FILE IN THE FIRST PLACE! I even went as far as throwing homebrew .htaccess files everywhere I could in all sorts of folders (one website said if your file is wrong, it just won't do anything, so I figured if it were in the wrong spot, it wouldn't do anything either). Cyberduck did not show the .htaccess file on my hard drive, so I could not upload it to the server. After seeing the comments and the video, I downloaded drupal on my windows laptop, and there it was, in all its glory, the .htaccess file. Uploaded it via ftp from the network neighborhood, and boom, days of frustrations turned to glee because now I can use ImageCache. My life can go on... THANKS A MILLION DRUPAL DUDE.