Microsoft Expression Web–Version 4.0.1460.0 free (sunset edition)

I rather like the easy-to-use and familiar user interface of Microsoft’s various editing apps. Microsoft Word. for example, the most widely used document editor, the one that all others have to measure up to (and some do that very well).

Microsoft Visual Studio is another favorite of mine, right up to and including the latest VS2017 edition,  most certainly a top-class IDE.

Then creating and submitting blog posts there was until recently the free Microsoft Windows Live Writer (WLW), where you create your posts via an offline editor rather similar to a simplified version of Word. I grew to love WLW as an easy and efficient tool for blogging. It has interfaces with WordPress, Blogger and other blogging services, but was deprecated by Microsoft in 2015 or 2016. Luckily, out of its ashes appeared an open-source version called  as Open Live Writer, also free and with all the functionality of WLW.

But what about an offline editor for creating and maintaining web pages. There are quite a few free and commercial products available, and I have a number of them installed. They each have their pros and cons, and I pick the one that’s best for a particular job.

The web page editor that I use most is Microsoft Expression Web, a commercial (paid-for) product. I started in the late 1990s with Expression Web 2, upgraded to version 3, and then to the final version Expression Web 4.

I find Expression Web that it’s very easy to use, again with a familiar interface to that of Word, with a particularly good WYSIWYG capability that suits my need for creating and maintaining my website.

Admittedly my site is fairly vanilla, without many of the advanced “bells and whistles” that are all the vogue on many websites. (If I want any advanced or more recent features I use one of my other web editors to code these, then usually switch back to Expression Web to continue with simpler HTML and CSS coding.)

Microsoft deprecated Expression Web (and its companion Expression Design) in December 2012 and made them available as free products. Of course they will no longer be updated, but they are still quite decent, powerful web creation tools.

Give it a fling, you’ve nothing to lose!

You can download Expression Web 4 (free version) from the following Microsoft location:
       Expression Web version 4.0.1460.0

Interactive health visualizations

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) has some fascinating interactive data visualizations on its website.

You can select a chart type (such as USA health map, tobacco visualization, Life Expectancy & Probability of Death) and adjust a wide range of parameters -- such as country, age or gender – and see a visualization for that group of selection criteria.

For example, below is a life expectancy chart for both sexes combined, where those countries shown in lighter colors (red, orange, yellow) have the lowest life expectancies:

 

Here’s another one, showing life expectancies in the USA since 1981:

I commend that you check out the visualizations.