Rsync Instructions

I have been trying to setup rsync on my server and following these instructions

http://www.bqbackup.com/setup.html

The problem is I keep getting errors.

On this step,

ssh-keygen -t rsa -N

I edited it and did ssh-keygen -t rsa --N becauseI got an error saying it need the '--' before the N.

So after getting through that part, I got these questions asked

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:

I left the passphrase empty, and then when it asked where to save to, I just typed in 'rsa'. Then it gave me some fingerprint.

Then I get to the step,

# scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub yourusername@yourusername.bqbackup.com:keys/server1
# ssh yourusername@yourusername.bqbackup.com mergekeys

But I get errors saying

-bash: cat~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub: No such file or directory

I dont get what I'm doing wrong. If somebody doesnt mind, can you please re-write the steps on getting this working, or maybe tell me where I am going wrong if the tutorial is correct?