When I was asked to write an article about computer solutions, I was pretty stumped. What do I know about computers, I thought? Yeah, I use one, like most people. I get on the internet and expect to push a few buttons and summon up the information I need. But ask me about computer solutions, how a computer works, what computing is all about and I scratch my head and watch the tumble weed roll around my feet.

I don't use or have any need for computer solutions. Or so I thought. Looking into it a little further, I realise we all use them all the time. Computer solutions are in our everyday lives, regardless of age, intelligence levels, ability, class and race.

Long gone are the days when I really believed Starsky and Hutch were miniature people running around inside my TV. The TV is one of the first things that we all realise carries a degree of computerisation. We realise it, then we forget it. But every time we pick up the remote control to save ourselves the long trek across the room to switch channels, somebody, somewhere, has had to come up with a computer solution.

Switch on the DVD player and a whole host of computer solutions come to life. Pop in a cartoon DVD for the kids and computer solutions come into their own with numerous man hours having gone into the computer graphics and animation behind the story.

Walk down any street and you'll see the majority of people who look like they're wearing hearing aids but are, in fact, listening to music on their mp3 players or iPods. This is another computer solution application that constructs barriers to conversation, just as a TV does.

Simply washing your smalls has gone all computerised on us. Using the washing machine these days requires onboard computers. Some of the more high tech complicated washing machines require a virtual degree in computer programming just to get a quick rinse and spin done.

And therein lies the ongoing problem of simplifying computer solutions. Everything moved on in leaps and bounds with the dawning of the technology age but in the struggle to make our lives easier, for some it has just become more difficult. On top of that, it doesn't seem to give us any more time because we just try to cram more in.

Those who work in the world of computers are constantly striving to discover new ways of using computer technology, then on ways to apply it in everyday life. Next, they find ways of making it available to the masses, then they have to try and make it affordable. After all that, they then look for ways to fine tune what they have to make it easier to use. Whatever happened to an on/off button? I might not know about computers but who doesn't understand on/off?

At least if we don't like this complicated life we can escape to the world of virtual reality. An amazing feat on the behalf of computer solution experts comes in the form of what resembles a wired up oversized crash helmet. You can escape to a place that not so long ago was the stuff of science fiction movies.

Surely, they could make a programme for this virtual reality world that would show us how to use all our complicated computerised gadgetry.