The number of people using 800×600 resolution monitors or lower has got to the point where in most cases this segment can safely be ignored.

If you are designing for a minimum resolution of 1,024 px wide (which translates to a 984px wide web page layout, once you allow for scroll bars etc), perhaps 2 to 3% of your visitors might encounter the dreaded horizontal scrollbars. Not many. And if you are running a business website, are you that concerned with visitors who have such old technology?

Looking ahead, the next significant screen resolution to consider is 1,280 px wide. If you designed for this width, more than a third of your visitors would need to scroll horizontally – not good. So we are probably going to see 984 px width web designs the maximum width for a while.

Based on my set of stats, the following table shows the the main screen resolutions and the % of visitors who would need to scroll horizontally if you designed for this width:

Down at the 320px level we are looking at the iPhone platform, and different rules apply here. Designing business websites for the iPhone platform means using a separate website, quite possibly yourdomain.mobi, so buy your domain if you can.

Screen Resolutions and Web Page Widths – April 2009

We have previously recommended Google Apps as a great solution for your business email needs.

Google Apps works great while you’re in the office, but what about when you’re on the road?

For years it’s been possible to access your Google apps email on your mobile device, but until now there hasn’t been an easy way to keep your calendar and contacts up to date on your computer and your mobile.

Google has recently announced a new feature  – Google Sync:

Google Sync (beta) is now available, and allows two-way push sync of Google Calendar and Gmail contacts data to iPhone and Windows Mobile devices through ActiveSync. Two-way contacts sync is also available for devices that support SyncML.

This allows you to easily keep your mobile phone’s contacts and calendar up-to-date with your Google Apps calendar and contacts.

Need to schedule a new meeting while out of the office? Add the meeting to your phone’s calendar and it will automatically be added to your Google calendar.

Just added a new phone number to your mobile? It will now be available on your Google contacts when you return to your desk.

No longer is it necessary to maintain two separate address books and calendars.

More information on how to set this up on your mobile device is available here.

Google Apps calendar and contacts sync available for iPhone, Windows Mobile and more

Google Analytics on iPhone

When clients get to see the analytics on their websites for the first time, there is usually a big ‘aha’ moment. Seeing where visitors come from, what they look at and how long they stay … this is really powerful feedback.

Personally, one of the key reports I look at is the Keyword report, which shows all the search engine visitors to your website broken down by the keywords used to find your site. I like to sort that list by Average Time on Site, and check how many different keywords are leading to visits over 30 seconds. This metric quickly tells me how much traction a site is getting with search visitors.

A good healthy spread of keywords leading to more-than-casual visits is a positive sign, and almost always is a precursor to strong leads and sales.

Thanks to Debra Mastaler, the link building genius, for pointing out the new app on her Twitter feed.

iPhone and Google Analytics