Yes, the DocumentRoot can be any directory. I would guess that either the Apache user doesn't have r-x permissions to /home/mike, or there isn't a default index file in /home/mike and directory ...

The term Virtual Host refers to the practice of running more than one web site (such as company1.example.com and company2.example.com) on a single machine. Virtual hosts can be "IP-based", meaning ...

This document describes how to efficiently serve an arbitrary number of virtual hosts with Apache. Your configuration file is smaller so Apache starts faster and uses less memory. Adding virtual hosts ...