[Rails] upload file above /public, authenticate before serving?

[robbie shepherd]

I have file uploads to the database and stored in a longblob working on 
our client extranet, except that it kills mysql/activeRecord on files 
bigger than about 200kb. (is there a reason for this - running mysql 
5.0.18, lighttpd or webrick on winxp??)

So I'm now thinking about whether its possible to do either:

1) upload a file into #rails_root/some_folder/ instead of 
/public/some_folder, store a reference to the file in the db instead and 
somehow serve it up to authenticated users

or 2) upload the file into /public/folder but find a way of only serving 
up the files to authenticated users (I'm currently using login_system.rb 
to authenticate users)

anyone have any ideas? I'm stumped...

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