One of the real issues facing all website designers is, and always has been, visitor screen resolution.

Back in the days of Windows95 and even 98 most people had their computers set to 640x480 screen size. We had 14 and 15 inch CRT (tube) monitors and video cards that had maybe 4Mb of ram onboard, and so there was little choice. We finally progressed to 800x600 when things improved.

These days the most common resolution is 1024x768 but 1280x1024 is quickly becoming the 'new standard' now that we have 19 inch and higher LCD monitors and video cards with 128Mb (and often more) memory installed.

The problem is, there are still around 30 percent of web site visitors using 800x600 - and designers have to make an effort to accommodate this sizable number of visitors to the sites they create and maintain. This always involves a compromise - in the case of this site, visitors running their monitors at this resolution will notice they have to 'horizontally scroll' to view all the page content. The sidebar menu layout looks odd too - sorry I can't get this any better than it is.

Like most sites now, visitors still running at 640x480 (under around 5% and rapidly dropping thank goodness) would find it impossible to navigate - and I have made no efforts to accommodate them.

For visitors running the more usual 1024x768 or higher this compromise affects them in that I can't fill the entire screen width with the site content and so avoid the need for 'vertical scrolling', but I believe the compromise is acceptable.

The problem won't go away any time soon I guess as screen resolution is continually improving (or depending on your eyesight getting worse!) and designers will continue to have to make compromises - oh, for a consistent standard!

Now, browser choice is a whole other issue, but I'll go into that subject at a later time. For now though, can I state this: 'In my opinion, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 is junk'.
IE6 was bad enough with it's severe privacy and security issues, but IE7 has become a nightmare for both users and designers. Please, if you do nothing else this year - download the fantastic Firefox. It was the inspiration for IE7 but they actually got it right first time!