But I’ve got a problem. I have one computer that I use as my main listening device, which works great. I also listen using my smart phone over my LAN without issues. The problem arises when I try to listen on any of my other computers.

When I try the player I simply get this message after a period when it seems to be kicking off the stream: Ooops, there was a connection problem!

The only advice I can seem to find is to clear cookies and cache from my browser but nothing works. Different browsers on the same machine are no good either. Any ideas?

1. You don’t need this crutch to help you through life

Seriously, you don’t need it to help you get through the bad times, social situations and any other excuse for a drink that you find. In fact I’d go further and say that drinking alcohol is self-perpetuating in that way – the more you use it to cover up ‘problems’, the more problems it causes and the more you need to rely on it.

The more you use the crutch, the more you need it. If you feel strong enough to throw the crutch away, just do it and watch the possibilities in your life reveal themselves to you.

2. It’s a massive waste of money

You don’t really need me to tell you this one do you?

Imagine that night out with your friends next week. The one where you spend a decent percentage of your weekly earnings on a drug that will leave you hungover the next morning, barely able to remember the night before. The one where you spend cash paying into tacky nightclubs, the same ones you walk past during the day and think “never again….”. Then the taxi home, maybe with some private hire driver in a car that’s barely safe with 200,000 miles on the clock. And that taxi at 02:30 in the morning isn’t cheap is it?

Now imagine doing the same thing sober. By 11 at night you realise your friends are talking total crap and basically going through the motions. Think about how much money you’ll have spent on soft drinks instead of booze. Then you have the convenience of driving home in your own car, ready for a good night’s sleep after enjoying the best part of the evening before it all goes downhill.

Or maybe your thing is just a couple of bottles of wine at home? Still don’t come for free do they?

3. You’ll find out who your real friends are when you quit

You simply can’t believe who will not want to know you after you stop drinking. I’m talking about friends you’ve had for many years, perhaps even family members. Trust me, I know.

4. You’ll find time you never knew you had

One of the greatest things I’ve found since I stopped drinking alcohol is the extra amount of time I have on my hands. I used to dedicate large chunks of my week to booze and I didn’t even know it. It’s not just the time that’s completely lost while you’re in a stupor, but the time before and after.

5. It’s not good for your health

This is a no-brainer. Alcohol is a poison. Why do we get hangovers? It’s our bodies pleading with us to stop filling them with poison.

6. You’ll find the real you

Without the crutch of alcohol to fall back on, the ability to become high and detached from the real world, you’ll have no place to hide and have no choice but to find the real you.

This is I guess the most frightening part of quitting the booze. But trust me, once you get over the first few stages of quitting, you’ll find the real you isn’t nearly as bad as you thought. That’s when you’ll start developing the real you into someone you can be proud of.

7. You’ll find happiness in every minute of the day, not just when you’re high

One thing I could never understand when I first started working was why most people work purely for the next high. Why work all week, often doing a job you hate (at least I did at the time) to spend all your money on getting drunk, to take away the pain of the meaningless life you’re living? Do crap work > Get drunk > Do crap work > Get drunk ……

Stopping drinking takes one of those elements out of the equation and forces you to think about what you’re doing with your life. This helps lead to happiness all the time, not just at certain ‘high’ times in the week.

8. Your social life will expand

People often complain that “my social life will disappear if I quit drinking”. I find the opposite to be true. Being sober means I can drive to several social events in an evening. I will also have many more meaningful social interactions at these functions. Simplistic? Yes, but it’s true.

9. You’ll stop upsetting people

Tell me you’ve never upset anyone when you’re drunk. Said things you wouldn’t dream of saying normally, even if they’re true!

Drink made me do really stupid things when I was young, involving violence and other crazy things. These stopped as I got older, but one thing from drink remained – the crap that sometimes came out of my mouth, directed at the people I love.

10. Life’s better without it

If you’re a drinker you’ll have to trust me on this one! At the time of writing I’ve been dry for just over three years. My life has been better in so many ways, even though most people would have said my life was pretty good to start with. I knew it wasn’t.

Got any more to add to the list? Don’t like my list? Use the comments box below and tell me more.

So you want more Facebook friends? You’ve added all your friends, looked up old school buddies, work mates and ex-lovers? But you still want more friends – and why not?

Here’s my list of ways that you can increase your Facebook friend count and enrich your life with the help of new people. At the time of writing I have over 1000 Facebook friends partly using the methods below.

Oh and there’s quite a lot to look at here, so if you’re serious about making new Facebook friends, why not add this page to your favourites so you can come back some other time?

1. Use Facebook’s built-in Find Friends feature

Go to Facebook’s Find Friends section and enter your email address and password. This will then pull in all the contacts in your email account and tell you if they’re on Facebook. Do this for all the email accounts you have. The “People You May Know” section at the bottom of the page could also throw up some contacts.

2. Use the search box to find people with similar interests

Usually the search box is used just to find specific people, so you might enter “John Smith”. But how about trying to find people who have the same interests as you? If you like the music of say, David Bowie – type “David Bowie” into the search box and see a list of people who are interested in him too. To narrow the search, try whatever you’re interested in and then your local area – so I could try – “David Bowie Halifax” to pull out all the people in my local area (Halifax) who are interested in David Bowie. When you find those people, send them a message to strike up a conversation about your shared interest. If it goes well, hit them with a friend request.

3. Join groups

Facebook has a vast array of user created groups that grows every day. Just click on the Groups link on your left menu in Facebook and use the search box to find groups related to things you like. For instance, if you like video games, type in “Nintendo” or whatever your favourite console is to find like-minded people. Now join the groups you’re interested in, particpate in the Discussion Board section and post on the Wall. Get talking to people in the group and request their friendship. And just by joining lots of groups means you’re putting yourself out there where people can find you.

4. Put your profile address on business cards

Obviously this only applies if you use business cards! Next time you get some printed up, why not have your Facebook profile address added? It’s all about advertising your profile.

5. Put your profile address in email signatures

You send emails right? Why not put the address of your profile in that signature with an invitation for the reader to add you as a friend?

6. Put your profile address in forum signatures and forum profile

Most web discussion forums allow the adding of some kind of signature to your posts – add your Facebook profile address there. Usually you can also add a web address to your forum profile – stick your Facebook address in there too. And make sure you’re active on as many forums as you can be.

7. Add your Facebook profile to your own blog or website (even if don’t have one yet!)

You can easily create a Facebook badge to include on your own blog or website. Check out Facebook’s Create Badge page to make a badge like the one I have at the top of this page.

Not got your own website or blog? Get a free blog now and start blogging – even if your only post is to write about your Facebook profile! It’s another way to advertise your Facebook profile. Try a free blog at Blogger. See the blog I created at Blogger simply to promote my Facebook profile – My Blogger Blog

8. Join friend finding groups and post on walls

Now don’t tell anyone, but numbers 8 and 9 on this list are the absolute killer ways to find new Facebook friends. Friend finding groups are groups that have been set up on Facebook specifically so that people can hook up as friends – completely randomly. Typically you’ll join the group and perhaps post on the wall and add as many friends as you want from the wall or by choosing the group members. Here’s an example of some groups:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28820445233
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204969237
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12467607339
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2427051747
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8068399405

9. Use friend finding groups and invite those who post on walls

Surf the same groups we spoke of in number 8 to find people who have posted on the group’s wall asking for friendship. Then simply request. It’s that simple! You absolutely can not go wrong with these two methods.

10. Google is your friend – use google to find profiles

This is pretty simple. Put this in Google’s search box: “http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=” (without the quotes)
It’s going to find a great many pages where people are showing their Facebook profiles as a link. So you naturally know that many of these links will be from people who are actively encouraging you to get in touch.

To add a little more targeting to your search, add something else to your search term, for instance “http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id= add me” will pull out more people who are specifically looking for people to add them as friends. Note the space after the profile URL and “add me”. Or how about this if I was looking for friends who practice Karate?: “http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id= karate”. Experiment with your searches.

11. Use the popular press to find interesting people

I’ve done this many times. I read newspapers and watch a little TV. If I see someone interesting with a good story in the press or on TV I’ll search their name on Facebook. If I find them I’ll simply message them, tell them I enjoyed their story or whatever and then ask directly if we can become Facebook friends. OK, you often won’t find them at all and they’ll often turn you down if you do, but this has worked for me and I’ve managed to become friends with some very interesting people this way.

12. Add me!

I’m a likeable kind of fellow who will chat with you if you want to or leave you alone if not. You won’t get hit with lots of apps from me, but I don’t mind you sending me yours. So what have you got to lose? Just click on my Facebook link at the top of the page or right here and add away!: Tim Baxter on Facebook

Notes:

Don’t get banned – Whilst all these methods are perfectly within Facebook’s terms and conditions, they do get kind of twitchy over people who add too many friends. There’s no known definition of ‘too many’, so you just need to be careful. The most friends I’ve requested to be my friend with in one day is 20, though I soon cut that down as there was no way I could engage with all those people every day. I now look for 5 new friends a day and accept most of the requests that come my way on top of that.

Got your own methods of finding new Facebook friends? Share them with us in the comments below.