Opera Speed Dial: How to Add Website Thumbnails.

If you use Opera browser you noticed that since version 27 or 28 the built-in Speed Dial doesn't add thumbnails anymore, but just large coloured icons with large letters i.e.

I personally find it difficult to look for a website I want to open, too many colours and they all look alike. I am so used to having website screenshot thumbnails, it was so much easier to locate a dial. Recently I found a way to add thumbnails to speed dials. I don't know if they are going to stay on after another update, I guess it is for me to find out later on and I will post it here. It is a two step process, but it's worth it if you like pictures for speed dials. First you have to bookmark it. And then add it to the speed dial. Just click a button when you hover over a bookmark.

When you do it this way the website appears as a thumbnail.

Cineplex Download Manager: How to re-install, and install in Windows.

When you buy or a rent a movie from Cineplex and if you want to download it then you go your Content online and click Download.

A pop up window will instruct you to install Microsoft Silverlight, then you have to refresh the window, and then it will prompt you to install Cineplex Download Manager. It is not only a download program, but you can also watch your movies with it.

But it is not a stand alone program, it works via Silverlight. So if you go to the desktop icon's property for Cineplex Download Manager you will see the following:

Target: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\sllauncher.exe" 3047536078.store.cineplex.com

And if you have troubles with Cineplex Download Manager, and you decide to uninstall and install it again as a regular program, fat chance! You won't be able to find it in your list of programs.

Sometimes it will work if you go to online content and try downloading a movie it may prompt to install a new Cineplex Download Manager. But in some difficult cases you have to remove Cineplex Download Manager so that it prompts you to install it. This is how you do it.

1. Uninstall Silverlight. Go to Programs and Features, find Microsoft Silverlight, right-click and uninstall it.

2. Locate your cineplex folder in Windows. The folder structure will look something like this:

C:\Users\Edward\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Silverlight\OutOfBrowser\3047536078.store.cineplex.com

Now, don't go to ...\Local Low\Microsoft\Silverlight that's a wrong folder, go to ...\Local\Microsoft\...

So delete Silverlight folder altogether. If it says Can't Delete, you need to exit all other programs on your computer.

3. Once you deleted the Silverlight folder open your browser again (I recommend Firefox, at the time of writing it wasn't available for Chrome and Opera, and Internet Explorer is always quirky), log into Cineplex, go to your online content and try downloading a movie again. It will prompt you to install Silverlight, install it, refresh the page and voila! it will also prompt you to install a fresh copy of Cineplex Download Manager.

How to fully customize Firefox's New Tab Page (Firefox's native Speed Dial or Top Sites)

If you are an avid Firefox user just as I am you have probably learned how to customize a lot of Firefox's functions starting from simple tasks such as setting a home page to more complex stuff like disabling addons via about:config.

Most likely you use quite a number of add-ons whose number is constantly growing. Some of very popular add-ons are speed dials, which are just your favourite tabs put together in one place so that when you click a new tab it will display them for a fast access.

I've been using some speed dial add-ons for a number of years quite successfully and was very happy with them. Yet as the competition grows add-on authors start to spice their add-ons up with more features either to satisfy users' requests or gain popularity, or both. While most of such features are customizable and easy to disable or remove some of them I find really annoying and intrusive. Now most of them will silently add themselves to your already cluttered context menu or simply known right-click menu.

This is a very clean right click context menu, and this is how I like to keep it, but many of you are familiar with a less tidier version.


Another problem is that once in a while they will update their add-on and when you start Firefox it will also automatically open add-on's update webpage, which I also find distressing.

Now Firefox has a New Tab Page where you can pin your recently or most browsed websites also known for example as Top Sites in Safari. It is Firefox's native Speed Dial function. It is neat, clean and fast. The problem is that they don't offer any customization option except for either pinning (making a permanent link) or removing it, and you can only pin those websites that you have browsed.

After browsing Firefox's configuration settings I figured out a way to customize this speed dial.

Adding a website

1. Type about:config in the Firefox address bar.

2. Click I'll be careful, I promise button, which means you promise to be careful and if you mess your configuration settings up the author of this post will not be liable in any way.

3. In the search bar enter: browser.newtabpage.pinned

4. Right click and choose Modify.

5. Now you have to be very careful. A new website link you're about to add must be enclosed in curly brackets, website links are separated by commas and they all together sit inside square brackets. So if we want to add The Free Dictionary website it will look like this:

{"url":"http://www.thefreedictionary.com/","title":"The Free Dictionary"}

Pay attention to double quotes, commas and colons when adding. So here's an example of two websites that will show up in the New Tab Page speed dial:

[{"url":"http://www.google.com/firefox","title":"Google Search"},{"url":"http://www.thefreedictionary.com/","title":"The Free Dictionary"}]

This way you can customize website addresses and their titles.

The changes will take effect after you restart Firefox.

PS. Before you can do that you need to pin at least one page. If it's a new installation just browse some websites, close the browser, open it again and you will see some websites in the new tab page. Pin any of them. Also make sure you set remember history in privacy options.

Changing the Number of Columns and Rows

1. In the about:config search bar type: browser.newtabpage.columns

2. Right click and choose Modify or double click it and change it to a desired value.

3. Type: browser.newtabpage.rows and modify the value.