(idea) by 7Ghent Wed Feb 16 2005 at 18:59:42
In addition to the above, you may also wish to try The not-ass-backwards method
  1. Install mod_gzip.
  2. Configure mod_gzip.
  3. Enjoy your intellectual superiority.
You see, mod_gzip gzips and serves compressed versions of static HTML files for you, so you don't have to bother with compressing and serving them manually.

The install and configuration in more detail:
Download the latest version of mod_zip. This example uses version 1.3.26. Adjust accordingly. 

tar -zxvf mod_gzip-1.3.26.1a.tgz
cd mod_gzip-1.3.26.1a

make APXS=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs
make install APXS=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs
Then edit your httpd.conf file 
vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
and add the following (in the AddModule stuff):
first uncomment: 
#LoadModule gzip_module libexec/mod_gzip.so
to
LoadModule gzip_module libexec/mod_gzip.so
and 
#AddModule mod_gzip.c
to 
AddModule mod_gzip.c
and after AddModule mod_gzip.c add this below 
<IfModule mod_gzip.c>
mod_gzip_on Yes
mod_gzip_can_negotiate Yes
mod_gzip_static_suffix .gz
AddEncoding gzip .gz
mod_gzip_update_static No
mod_gzip_command_version '/mod_gzip_status'
mod_gzip_temp_dir /tmp
mod_gzip_keep_workfiles No
mod_gzip_minimum_file_size 500
mod_gzip_maximum_file_size 500000
mod_gzip_maximum_inmem_size 60000
mod_gzip_min_http 1000
mod_gzip_handle_methods GET POST
mod_gzip_item_exclude reqheader "User-agent: Mozilla/4.0"
mod_gzip_item_include file .html$
mod_gzip_item_include file .shtml$
mod_gzip_item_include file .htm$
mod_gzip_item_include file .shtm$
mod_gzip_item_include file .php$
mod_gzip_item_include file .phtml$
mod_gzip_item_exclude file .js$
mod_gzip_item_exclude file .css$
mod_gzip_item_exclude file .wml$
mod_gzip_item_include file .pl$
mod_gzip_item_include file .cgi$
mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/html$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/plain$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^httpd/unix-directory$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-httpd-php
mod_gzip_item_include handler ^perl-script$
mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/
mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
mod_gzip_add_header_count Yes
mod_gzip_send_vary Yes
Then restart apache with: 
service httpd restart
That's it! You should now have a working install of mod_gzip.

I like it!