If you are running your application just on localhost and it is not yet live, I believe it is very difficult to send mail using this.
Once you put your application online, I believe that this problem should be automatically solved.
By the way,ini_set() helps you to change the values in php.ini during run time.
This is the same question as Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25
also check this php mail function not working
