Set up how you want to find data

Q: When using the Apple finder, is there a way to have it open a specific location when I start it?

A: Apple Finder can be customized to open at a specific location when you launch it.

Open a Finder window and then click on the Finder menu at the top of the screen and then select Preferences. In the General section you will see a menu that says New Finder Windows, it shows where you can select what folder you want to have open by default. In this section you can also control many other features of Finder, such as which types of icons you want displayed on your desktop.

Microsoft Windows users wanting to make a similar change to Windows Explorer can do this by opening Explorer and clicking on the File menu. In this menu, select Change folder and search options and then make your choice in the section that says Open File Explorer to. Unfortunately, you can only choose between Quick access and This PC.

Q: My wife gets 100 to 200 spam email messages in her inbox every day. Is there an app or service that will filter them?

A: Spam filtering has always been a tricky business.

The one antispam software I have used in the past is MailWasher, which offers a free and a paid version. The software connects to your mail account and scans your email and flags undesirable messages.

It works well enough, but it can be fiddly.

Not everyone seems to know this, but you are not required to get your email service from your internet provider. I setup a Gmail account years ago and have enjoyed a relatively spamfree mail experience ever since. Google has some of the best spam filtering I have ever seen and they make it pretty easy to switch over without losing messages. You can see how to do this at tinyurl.com/ helplinemailswitch.