How to set up Opera 11?

[Fulvio]

I have tried to set up Opera 11, and have been baffled by a few "features?
1.And this was the case when I had last used Opera. Is there any way, and where do you do this, if available, to have the most recent mail on top? It is dumb to scroll down every time to see what's new.
2. I installed Opera, and, immediately it made itself default, no question asked. Any place to keep that from happening, as it is possible to do in other not so sneaky programs?
Maybe something showed up on installation, although the entire process was out of my sight. Anyway, the problem was fixed when I opened my Firefox default.
3. I would like to have two tabs open when I open Opera, as I do in all other programs. How do you do it?

I am sure that there is more, but these features (or non-features) are very irritating.

UserAgent: Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en) Presto/2.7.62 Version/11.00

[Anonymosity]

1. Is there any way, and where do you do this, if available, to have the most recent mail on top?
2. I installed Opera, and, immediately it made itself default, no question asked. Any place to keep that from happening, as it is possible to do in other not so sneaky programs?
3. I would like to have two tabs open when I open Opera, as I do in all other programs. How do you do it?

1. I use Thunderbird for mail, so I have no idea.
2. This happened with Opera in either Mac OS or Windows, I forget which. I was obliged to run Firefox to restore it to being the default.
3. Can you set up whatever tabs you want first and then use the Preferences home page setting to "Use Current" and have both show up as the home page? I am using "about:blank" for my home page, so have not experimented with it.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko Firefox/3.6.13

[Fulvio]

I think I got it for item 3. I wish to have two tabs open on Startup, so I selected a Startup of "Continue from last time". I did not bother with the Home Page, because Opera opens only one tab at a time, if I select "Use Current". But the Startup is what I wanted, and I don't go anywhere else, I get to open two. Worse comes to worse, I select Speed Dial, and I get to select the tabs, then. In other words, Opera does not seem to have a Netscape/Mozilla "home Group", rather than home page.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13