Are you looking for free or almost free stock photography? Your first stop should be Blue Vertigo, a nicely designed site that offers long lists of sites where you can find free or cheap stock photos. But that's not all. Use the horizontal scroll bar to discover resources for lots of other things, from Photoshop Brushes to free fonts to Poser downloads. It's a little bit of heaven.

I know we're a little behind on this one, but I thought I'd give it a shot in the hopes that I'm not the only one: iStockphoto has re-released their screen saver for both Mac OS X and Windows in a 1.5 beta version. The screen saver displays previous Free Images of the Week, as well as the latest front page blog post.

The screen saver can be had from iStockphoto's downloads page, though on my Intel-based MacBook Pro I received an error from the Screen Saver Preference Pane stating that this screen saver couldn't be run - which leads me to wonder if it isn't Intel-ready yet.

Either way, it at least sounds like a handy screen saver to help quench your iStockphoto obsession; anyone have any thoughts on this new version?

iStockphoto is back at the widget game again, now with a shiny new/updated set of widgets aptly titled the iStockWatcher Widget Suite which run on the Yahoo Widget Engine, a.k.a. Konfabulator. The three widgets go a little something like this:

• iStockwater 2.0.6 (green): their original account widget updated for the latest Yahoo Widget Engine
• iStockwater Lite 1.0.1 (pink): for keeping an obsessive eye on your downloads
• Downsample Calculator Widget: calculate the precise dimensions for downsampling for iStock, complete with drag and drop support.

Enjoy the new toys.

I'm finally digging through the pile of email I was avoiding over the holidays and discovered a site redesign notice from iStockphoto. On Monday, January 9th, they'll be launching version 8, a completely new, AJAX-infused site including reorganized categories, extended licenses, a new pricing structure and a new tool I'm interested in checking out: BuyRequest. This handy new addition will allow you to post image requests for a finder's fee, naming your own price or even listing your creative budget and sifting through submissions. The one thing I'm glad they got rid of: the gallery. Call me what you have to, but I've always been annoyed at stock sites that offer the confusing and conflicting options of both a lightbox and a gallery. Fortunately, I'm not the only one, and they simply decided to slim down to a lightbox system. Gallery-b-gone!

So swing on by iStockphoto (no this isn't a paid plug) on 1/9 for what sounds to be some nice new stock image goodness.