Does anyone know a good way to protect a directory that a php script NEEDS
to write too?

What I'm doing now:

1. create a directory manually "myDir"
2. chmod 777 myDir
3. password protect the directory with htaccess

Is this the best way, or is there something better?

Also, is there a way to mkdir or fopen a file dynamically, without
pre-creating a directory with 777 permissions?

Thanks for the help,
Andrew