If you really want true encryption, you should consider using PGP between you and your recipient, as that can add a much stronger layer of message encryption.

Additionally, tunneling your traffic through a trusted source (say, your computer at home), using a strong encryption strength would be one of the best methods, but would also require additional setup and knowledge about these things.. or follow a guide here: http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live–encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php (note, I have not tried their guide, but the directions seem sound).

If you’re not sending launch codes, you might decide that you can still use a public computer, but be aware.

you might point out to your M friends (and other readers) that by default, gmail has a secure LOGIN page, but then the mail is actually displayed at a non-secure page. You can see this by noticing the presence or absence of S after http in the location bar, or a lock on the page (just to the right of the location bar in Firefox) and possibly a color change in the location bar.

However, you can still browse Gmail securely – just add the S after http. It will switch to a secure server — then you can bookmark this and it will take you directly there from the login in the future.

If you absolutely have no choice, open Notepad or similar and type the entire alphabet (upper- and lowercase) and all the numbers, plus all punctuation marks if you use punctuation in your password, and then COPY AND PASTE your password character by character into the password field.

That should defeat most keyloggers, but you should nevertheless assume that someone else will be able to read any messages you write.