I noticed that I do not have a htaccess file. Is this the problem?
If so what do I need to do to get this custom permalink to work? The codex (which I don’t fully understand) states that in previous versions of WP using %postname% was not recommended, but maybe okay for versions after 2.2.
Also when I created a custom permalink structure was wordpress supposed to create the htaccess file? If this is the case, maybe I have a permission issue that needs resolved first.