Hi guys
I have designed my website to be fixed width, as I like to have complete control over the layout.
What is the current best practice width these days ?
I am using 800 pixels, which allows a nice bit of white space on each side in most browsers.

What do you think ?
Be easy on my I am self taught newbie

960px

If it works for you and your target audience, why does it matter?

I use 1000px, it fits on my screen settings fine.

I would generally like to leave a padding of 10 pixels around the sides depending on each resolution.

For example: If my developing resolution is on a screen at 800 x 600 screen resolution, I'd develop for a screen resolution that is equivalent to: 790 x 590 pixels. Generally I think the *Best* current screen resolution to develop for is the 8 x 6 because alot of people still use it, and you won't have to worry about users complaining about scrolling issues on different resolutions.

This works great unless of course you are developing portable website(s) for the iPod or iPhone, then you have no choice but to develop in lower resolutions such as 320 x 240 (I believe that the correct screen size)

This would be my general rule of thumb when developing using screen resolution.

Actually, since the scrollbar takes up approximately 22px, you want to leave yourself some room for that. Most of my sites these days are 960-1000px wide. The number of visitors using 800x600 is minuscule any more.

I went with 990px on my last two sites. So far I'm seeing similar numbers in Google Analytics as I do with my 770px sites.

I suggest you, after the first page developed, to check it setting to 1024 x 768 resolution of your videocard so you will get idea how looks like in a usual monitor.... 800x600 video are nearly extinct! so I personaly do not care them, i prefer a better graphic and loose some ipotetical visitors.