There seem to be many different opinions on how to brew coffee in a french press. As a reference, see the Howto on Coffeegeek, which I find great, albeit my opinion now differs from what Mark recommends. So, here's how I brew lately. Prerequisites:

• a clean french press. I mostly use a Bodum 2-cup French press
• the best and freshest coffee beans you can get your hands on. No, supermarket beans won't do, Tchb and the like are not really much better
• a good grinder. Really. It's more important than anything else. Freshly ground coffee compared to coffee ground yesterday makes the difference between a cup that you'll remember for long, and a cup that you would have gotten at the bakery next to you.
• not boiling water. If the water is anywhere near the boiling point, you'll get bitter coffee with much oomph, but it won't really taste good. Try to stop boiling it before the boiling point, and wait a bit before pouring

Put around 2 measuring spoons of ground coffee into the french press, and immediatly pour the hot water over it. Begin to count the seconds or stop the time as the water reaches the coffee! Right after adding the water, put the press together. After around 45 seconds, push the press down a bit and pull it up again, so that the grinds float around. After around 1 minute, push it down. Serve immediatly. And that's it.

I was using the pour-water-then-stir-wait-3-minutes-press-down method before, and found it to be quite good. But at the stand of the London School of Coffee in Bern I was shown this method, and the result blew me away. The taste of the coffee gets more pronounced, you get a bit less body, a bit less coffee-oomph, but way more of the bean qualities in the cup: If you tasted "this bean is a bit fruity" before, you'll now taste more of "hmmm, that's fruity. Maybe peach?" in it. I absolutely love this!

Of course, this is not a scientific method, and the results will vary from each try to another (you can't really control the water temperature, only guess, and you'll not always count the seconds, and you'll not always use the same amount of coffee, and coffee taste and behaviour changes as it gets older and and and and), but for me, this guideline paid out pretty well.