Please, please, please use e-mail whenever possible! It's simply the best way to communicate, period. If you're doing high-tech public relations and you don't have e-mail, get it! Even a free e-mail service is better than nothing. And if you're averse to using e-mail - then maybe you shouldn't be doing high-tech P.R. at all.

But there are preferred ways of using e-mail. For example:

• Unless you've got it cleared in advance, don't send press releases as attachments in a word processor format. You make two presumptions when you do this. First, you presume everyone's set up to decode e-mail attachments - they're not. Second, you presume everyone uses your word processor - they don't. Up until recently at the Chronicle, we had a Unix-based computer system and could not even read PC-generated documents. Additionally, Microsoft Word documents are bandwidth hogs and can carry macro viruses - and yes, I have gotten viruses from press releases! Please, send your e-mail in the form of text messages only.

  (By the way, almost every other tech writer I know hates e-mail attachments - we gripe about them amongst ourselves all the time. You're better off, in general, using text-only e-mail. Trust me on this.)

• Once you've sent your e-mail, don't duplicate it with a phone call or a fax. This negates the whole purpose of e-mail.

• If you haven't gotten a response to a news release and want to follow up, do so with e-mail. Usually, if I'm interested, I'll respond fairly quickly and if I'm not, I won't respond at all. I don't mind getting a "nudge" via e-mail, but I get very irritated when it comes via phone, or fax. Again, this negates the whole point of e-mail.