This is the main column that has a fixed width of 600px (585 pixels wide and 15px of padding on the left and right).

To test out this design, open it in a non-maximized window. Then try resizing your window wider and narrower. As you widen it, the three columns on the right side will either display one above the other or side by side - depending upon how much room you have for them.

Liquid and Fixed Widths Combined

This layout uses a fixed width for the main column (this one) and a liquid width for the secondary column. That means that the site will stretch for wider browsers, but won't get too narrow to read for any one column.

Another feature of this layout is that it has a max-width set so that it won't get any wider than 1200px. This means that on widescreen monitors it won't get so wide that it is unreadable. However, if you aren't worried about that, or you feel that the max-width makes the page less accessible, removing it doesn't affect the rest of the design.

The Faux Column

Another interesting feature of this page is the faux column. This one uses a very simple white background that is only 600px wide and 1px high so it's very small - 64KB. I tiled it using CSS only on the y-axis, so it just stacks one on top of the other, and doesn't over lap on the brick background color I use for the rest of the page.

Thanks to Muffin Research Labs for the initial ideas behind this layout.