Maximum fixed-size width

[ran_dizolph]

Hey all,

alright, first off, i prefer to build my sites fixed-width...I just feel more in control of content display by doing it this way.

Secondly, up until now, I have always built them at about 760px - 780px wide to avoid the horizontal scrollbar, even @ 800 x 600.

My question is this:
how many of you feel it's time to bump the maximum width up? How many of you do? What's the max. fixed width you're now using?

I know the average size is above 800x600 now, and am getting tired of building sites optimized for minorities.

Opinions?

[simonlogan]

I still design to 800x600 so using a similar 780px width as you do, however i think it really is getting about time to up it slightly so I do occasionally use 980px or so instead. Just checked the stats on our own website and only 1.8% of visitors were using that res, with 37% on 1024x768 and 25% on 1280x800.

Obviously you have to account for users in other countries or circumstances that might have older technologies so i suppose you could tailor it to your predicted audience. If you're using CSS to layout your site you could always use one of the techniques for detecting screen resolution then adapting the page to suit.