Fools were out and about this week in an investing world jam-packed with actions and ideas. Here are three articles you might find useful as you decide how to invest your money.

Orphan Drugs: Small Patient Base, Big Opportunity:
It's nice that big drug companies develop medicines to treat rare diseases, but why do they bother with such small potatoes? What does Novartis (NYSE: NVS), with a $100 billion market cap, really get out of Ilaris, which it produces to treat a disease that affects only a few hundred Americans? It doesn't even have the market to itself. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: REGN) also has a drug approved to treat cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome.

Fool writer Brian Orelli shed some light: "Novartis and Regeneron are both testing their drugs as a treatment for gout -- a larger market -- and Novartis is also testing Ilaris as a treatment for diabetes -- a much, much larger market."

Click though to the article to learn more about why so-called orphan drugs can be important to companies and to your portfolio.

Your Investing Life Begins at 65:
If you want to spend 30 years in retirement, doing what you enjoy and living off of savings and investments, then you need to start planning now for the three stages of a post-work life. "[I]nvesting as if your entire retirement were exactly the same is seriously flawed," noted Fool writer and editor Dan Caplinger.

Click through to the article for Dan's advice on how to invest for the active phase of your retirement, the winding-down portion, and the stage where you should be looking to the future (that is, your death and where your money goes after you shuffle off).

Garmin's Last Gasp?
A smartphone with GPS capabilities is a beautiful thing, especially when you're lost on the way to your in-laws. However, even technology that can save you from marriage-ending discord doesn't necessarily make a beautiful investment.

Fool contributor Anders Bylund told a story this week about GPS tech company Garmin (Nasdaq: GRMN), which is trying to reclaim ground from smartphones produced by companies such as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL).

"Garmin had better have one amazing GPS package up its sleeve," wrote Anders. "In the long run, I think Garmin needs to find a smartphone designer sugar daddy, because stand-alone GPS gadgets won't cut the mustard much longer."

Click through to the story for a good example of how to look beyond the glitzy pieces of your investing thesis and see whether it holds together in total.