Its fine as is kitz.
It can be done in a vhost instead of htaccess, both ways work.
The difference is that the vhost is a configuration file for the webserver, usually edited by the server admin or automatically by control panel software.
htaccess is easily edited by the webmaster (which is yourself), both work the same. Vhost is arguably more secure as isnt accessible if your user area is compromised.
The regex supplied does the same thing as well, his just adds the 301 redirect, otherwise is same as what I gave you.
So when you happy with how its behaving, its just adding the 301 to satisfy google, this can be normal riskier way or using the cached method I supplied, its up to you.