Thanks Dave
i'm asking the question from a web design point of view, depending on what stats you look at then you will get different answers to the most common screen sizes, it depends on who you target audience is. I gather that my general target audience will be your bog standard web surfer (like you and me) as opposed to drawing lots of traffic from say IT professionals that would in general have more expensive larger monitors
Up until resently 1024x768 was the most popular but now 1280x1024 isn't that far behind as more people have bought larger widescreen monitors and the trend is growing, so i'm now tempted to have my (under construction) website re-sized to allow for the incease in larger monitors
BUT i'm also aware that more and more people are using netbooks/handhelds/mobiles to surf the net whilst out and about so i'm at a cross roads as to what way i will go