OT: web design and screen resolution

[Joseph Huber]

Dunno if I am going to open a can of worms here... anyone out there that has 
done some web page design (free-lance, during the day job, whatever) have 
any thoughts on a screen resolution to aim for? I am thinking that 15 inch 
monitors and 800x600 is pretty much a thing of the past (and that 17 inch is 
fast going the same way) but that 1024x768 is reasonable resolution. I have 
a 17 inch monitor at home and usually have the browser maximized... but at 
work on a 19 inch (to me) having a window maximized seems to make it too 
big.

I have a hard time arguing with the "design research" behind something like 
good old Amazon which seems to design for 1024x768 but scales well down to 
800x600 (but then me, myself and I don't have Amazon type resources). What 
looks good assuming 1024x768 doesn't work so much at 800x600 (unless I force 
a fixed size font which I don't want to do... and Firefox seems to ignore it 
if I do anyway) and if I make it look good at 800x600 it doesn't look so hot 
at 1024x768.

I'm getting stuck in a rut where all I'm going to do is worry about 
resolution for the indeterminate future. Any thoughts welcome...

Joe