I do some dumb things for a guy who has spent decades messing with technology both as a job and as a hobby.

Take my latest idiotic adventure, for instance. I noticed that I qualified for a new free phone from my cellular provider. So I ordered one.

My old phone worked just fine. It worked, well, just like a phone. You called people, or they called you. But I couldn't resist the new phone offer.

My new phone, for no reason I can figure, makes chirping and whistling sounds like a lovesick robot. I can turn those off. But it also has so many features --- I can take live video and still pictures, listen to MP3s, organize my contacts, make notes, use a calculator and play games --- that the telephone part seems like an afterthought.

Yesterday I tried calling my wife to tell her the obvious --- that it was hot outside --- and ended up taking video of my steering wheel. When I tried to stop the video I got an onscreen message telling me I was putting the phone in standby mode. I'm not even sure what standby mode is.

It's not just cellphones. This feature-happy foolishness applies to HDTVs, computers, digital cameras and other gizmos as well. My advice: Avoid gadgets that try to cram in too many features --- especially features you don't need.

For one thing, why pay for all that confusion? Believe me, you do.

There's also a practical reason to avoid some of these Swiss army gizmos.

In almost every case that I know, trying to make an electronic device that does many things produces a gadget that does a mediocre job at everything. So if you're buying a phone, get one that is especially good at being a phone. Same deal with an HDTV. Before you start worrying too much about whether it will display still pictures from your computer, find one that has a good picture and is easy to use.

None of this is a new problem with technology, nor is it difficult to understand how it happens. Marketing people try desperately to find unique features of products, whether they're cars, bags of grilling charcoal or computers. They simply want to find new sales hooks.

So you end up with cellphones that are bad video cameras and computers that are mediocre substitutes for TVs and audio systems. It reminds me of that joke about the pig that could sing. The songs were all off-key, but the remarkable thing was that it could sing at all.

I can think of some multifunction devices worth having but not many. For families that seldom need a copy machine or a scanner, a printer that combines those functions can make sense. The compromises are still there, but most of these machines do a decent job printing.

Then there are people who need a cellphone, wireless access to e-mail and a way to keep track of work data. These folks are good candidates for a Palm Treo 650 or a BlackBerry.

Beyond that, though, you're heading into dangerous territory.

The danger of multifunction devices is best illustrated, believe it or not, by the flight of the Spirit of St. Louis. You'll remember that Lindbergh used a single-engine airplane --- even though some of his challengers tried with multiengine planes --- to make that first historic flight over the Atlantic.

Lindbergh's thinking: The more motors on the airplane, the more chances an engine would develop trouble. There's twice the chance of engine problems with two engines.

It's the same with any device that has multiple functions. There's more to go wrong and, given the laws of nature, it becomes more likely something will go wrong.

So you could end up with a printer that no longer can copy and are faced with the dilemma of deciding whether to replace it with a new gadget, or end up doing what you tried to avoid ... buying a separate copier.

OK. That's it for today. I'm heading home. I would call my wife to tell her, but I keep taking pictures of my foot instead.

tecbud@ajc.com