Tour of My Pageflake Page

Honestly, I am not computer-savvy. My friends would laugh at me if they found out I have my own blog. All I knew about computers is how to browse the internet and use some basic Microsoft Word and Excel applications. Then, my writing professor came to rescue this poor soul and taught me many tools that I can use for my research. My Pageflake page is the fruit of his excellent teaching. So now, let me introduce you to this wonderful world of Pageflake. Pageflake is a research aggregator where one can combine all his/her online research data in one place, including RSS feeds, annotations, web sites, and much more. I just began using my Pageflake and I am saving so much time since I am no longer browsing the web to check any updated article or post. All I have to do is go to my Pageflake and everything is there. Enough said, let me give you a tour of my Pageflake page.

RSS Feeds
On top of the page, I have Bloomberg TV for latest financial news and I have compiled my RSS feeds below. My RSS feeds provide numerous data about the economy, personal finance, and money. My favorite RSS feeds include MSN Money Top Stocks and Smart Spending . Unfortunately, both of my favorite feeds are having technical difficulties at the moment and I have added web pages for both feeds as well as a feed for MSN Money Latest Articles which includes all the latest posts from MSN Money blogs. These feeds provide up-to-date information on financial markets, the economy in general,real estate markets, and very useful personal finance articles. I found their commentary very helpful since they are willing to criticize instead of just summarize topics. L.A. Land is another feed I love to read since it covers the Southern California real estate market where my research is heavily focused, while other feeds mostly discuss the market on the national level. Even though these feeds cover an array of different areas, I have noticed that in recent months they are heavily focused on negative news. Whether I read L.A. Land or MSN Top Stocks, there is always news about the terrible housing market and its impact on our economy.

Zotero Bibliography
In addition to other research data, I have more than seven bibliographies that are located in a web site called Citeline. This is where I store all my annotations, and the advantage of having them online is that I can share them with others. I have written annotations for two books by Frederic S. Mishkin, who not only covers the fundamentals of the financial markets, but also the current financial crisis. It is interesting how the elements of historical crises in his book are also discussed in blogs that I subscribe to. My feeds are filled with the news of possible bank failures and according to Mishkin's books these failures are common during economic crises. Yes, history repeats itself and that is why we study theory.

Active Searches
On the left side of my page below my bibliography, I have added Universal News Search and Universal Blog Search widgets. These are great widgets offered by Pageflake, and when I enter my search terms, money and economy, I have found many great news and blogs that I am not aware of. I find these news and blog very helpful for my research and I will be adding them to my Diigo bookmark and RSS feeds.

Diigo Bookmarks
On the left bottom corner, I have placed my Diigo bookmarks. I find it very interesting to compare my Diigo bookmarks with topics on my feeds and search engines. Not surprisingly, they mostly have the same focus, the financial crisis and personal finance.

Social Bookmarking Soulmate
Right below my bookmarks, I have placed my soulmate's bookmarks. Honestly, I have not checked my soulmate's bookmarks for a while since I have not had time to look through his page. Now, since I have listed his page on my Pageflake, I can see his latest bookmarks without logging into Diigo. Guess what? I just found a great link to the Ludwig Institute from his page and I will use that for my research.

I am amazed how Pageflake has helped me explore other aspects of my research. Since I can now see all my sources on a single page, I can tell where the economy is heading by comparing all my sources and their latest updates.