Extra feature to send receipts - PHP Mailer not connecting

Question

I'm trying to add the feature to send "receipts" after buying and selling stocks. It seems to be very straightforward, I'm just using the code that David used in froshims, but I get the following error:

The following From address failed: [email protected] : Called Mail() without being connected

It seems that it is not connecting. Does this have to do with me not modifying the host?

// send user confirmation via email
require_once("PHPMailer/class.phpmailer.php");

// instantiate mailer
$mail = new PHPMailer();

// use your ISP's SMTP server (e.g., smtp.fas.harvard.edu if on campus or smtp.comcast.net if off campus and your ISP is Comcast)
$mail->IsSMTP();
$mail->Host = "smtp.fas.harvard.edu";

// set From:
$mail->SetFrom("[email protected]");

// set To:
$mail->AddAddress($email);

// set Subject:
$mail->Subject = "C$50 Finance: Stocks";

// set body 
$mail->Body = "Hello" . $username . ", you just bought" . $shares . "of" . $stock["name"] . "at" . $stock["price"] . "per share.";
// send mail
if ($mail->Send() === false)
    die($mail->ErrorInfo . "\n");

Answer 1

The problem is really about host(smtp.fas.harvard.edu),

I had the same problem and here is my decision:

I created a new mailbox at gmail, and used it like this:

/*Sends a message of $body with subject $subj to $to*/
function email($to, $subj, $body)
{
    // create mail object and set some settings settings
    $mail = new PHPMailer();
    $mail->IsSMTP();
    $mail->SMTPAuth   = true;//required for gmail
    $mail->Host = "smtp.gmail.com";//required for gmail
    $mail->Username   = "";//your new login to gmail
    $mail->Password   = "";//your new password to gmail
    $mail->SMTPSecure = "tls"; //required for gmail
    $mail->Port = 587;//required for gmail
    $mail->SetFrom("");//your new login to gmail

    $mail->AddAddress($to);
    $mail->Subject = $subj;
    $mail->Body = $body;
    $mail->IsHTML(true);//I used html pre formatted letters
    return $mail->Send() === false; //returns false in case of mistake

}

function uses gmail server to deal with letters

for easier usage you can add it to the end of includes/functions.php