help! seems I can not start the mod_rewrite function

I am new bie to mod_rewrite and before I can digest the mass of the howto in regular expression, I just want to begin my mod_rewrite function as helloworld, but neither the below setting(all in the root context of httpd.conf) fail, didnt work at all.

case A:
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^old\.html$ index.html [L]
RewriteLog /usr/local/apache/apache2.0.44/logs/rewrite.log

case B:
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^hello\.java\.net\.nl$ http://www.java.net.nl/hello/test.jsp
RewriteLog /usr/local/apache/apache2.0.44/logs/rewrite.log

Not only it response nothing(404), but also I found nothing in the rewrite.log,too; but in the access_log, I can found the records as below:

[05/Apr/2005:23:33:23 -0400] 0 "GET /old.html HTTP/1.1" 404 206 "- -> /old.html"
192.168.0.11 - - [05/Apr/2005:23:55:43 -0400] 0 "GET / HTTP/1.1" 400 0 "- -> /index.jsp"

the behind one logged for hello.java.net.nl request, however, seems response by the behind virtualhost setting:
<VirtualHost 192.168.0.10:80>
ServerName www.java.net.nl
DocumentRoot /home/jakarta/tomcat5/webapps/app
</VirtualHost>
however, the /index.jsp is existed but do not response,too.(it is not this topic, just skipped)

I thought the mod_rewirte didnot work at all? am I right?
what I has not to do but necessary?
my system is apache2.0.44, all install by one complie, the mod_rewirte inside as default.

thanks for any tips.
Frederick z Corel