Photos, any way you want them

It's been just five months or so since I last used this space for Shameless Commerce. But times are tough, and I'm doing it again, because we haven't seen a dime from any of those deals we got into with exiled foreign finance ministers who e-mailed us for help in un-freezing their assets.

Disappointing.

So here comes another plug. We have started selling our photos online.

We have long sold reprints of N&O photos, but it has been a cumbersome process that required you to remember when the photo ran in the paper, call someone here, and then we'd have to do all the billing and mailing.

We now have a deal with a company called Pictopia that lets you buy photos online.

Sometimes these will be pictures in a photo gallery that goes with, say, a story on a football game that just happened.

Or you can go to our Photo Store at newsobserver.com/photostore.

That's where we are steadily building galleries of some of the best pictures our photojournalists have taken.

With a couple of clicks, you can complete the transaction. Pictopia gets the order and handles the nitty-gritty of the transaction, like billing and shipping. You can get the standard photo framed or unframed.

But you can also get the pictures on ceramic tiles, Christmas ornaments, coasters, jewelry boxes, mugs, puzzles, T-shirts and tote bags.

I personally plan to order an ornament of Hurricanes enforcer Scott Walker clocking someone at center ice, because I think it would look nice on Eric Frederick's tree, he being the managing editor of newsobserver.com and a huge hockey fan.

Walker is due back from his hand injury in mid-November, so I think I have a shot. At any rate, I invite you to log on to our Web site. Browse through our photos, and get that Mike Easley mouse pad you've been longing for.

Halloween Events

Webmaster Sarah Lindenfeld Hall of TriangleMom2Mom.com has put together a bunch of Halloween events that your kids will enjoy. It's searchable by date and location, with corn mazes, haunted houses, carnivals, a parade and more. I counted more than 40 events.

I don't remember when Halloween became such a huge deal, but it is. You can find Sarah's list at (get ready for the long url) TriangleMom2Mom.com/content/triangle-halloween-guide. If your organization is having an event and it's not on the list, contact Sarah on the site.

Higher-ed blog

Eric Ferreri, our higher-education reporter, has been a contributor on two of our blogs -- OrangeChat (when he had a UNC item) and Bull's Eye (when he had a Duke item). But this wasn't very satisfactory, because 1) there are more higher ed institutions here than Duke and UNC, and 2) If you are interested in colleges and universities, you might not know where to find his blog posts.

Eric has solved the problem by creating a new blog, called Campus Notes. You can find it at blogs.newsobserver.com/campusnotes.