If, like me, you have some equally geeky mates,
this equation editor (
Warning: this is a download, maybe check Ronan's website first) allows you to compose Latex equations and drag/drop them in compiled form into your mailer (or OpenOffice, for that matter).
Beauty of Ubuntu - just click and all the dependencies come too, all correctly assigned. If you already have tetex and/or livetex, nothing is corrupted, as far as I can tell. 38 files are automatically downloaded and installed, ~30min on my rig
Open with the command "eqe" in your terminal. I like it a lot.
