help with sending php email via form

[the_styler]

this is my first attempt at using php in my web pages and i've been trying to include a simple form section which sends me an email & displays a message on submitting. i just can't get this to work - i just get a blank page in the browser with no message & no email is sent.

please let me know where i'm going wrong.

Form html is as follows:

<form action="process.php" method="post" name="form1" id="form1">
<textarea name="message" cols="30" rows="5" id="message"></textarea>
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Send Message" />
</form>

which points to a process.php file with the following code

<?php

$sender_msg=$_POST['message'];

$to = "[e-mail]";

$message = $sender_msg;

if(mail($to, $message) )
{

echo "<h3>Your message has been successfully sent.</h3>";

echo "We will reply to you in due course.<br /><br />";

echo "King regards,<br /> <i>The administration</i>";

}

else
{

echo "<h3>Error sending your message.</h3>";

echo "We apologyse for the error occured.<br />Please try again later or contact the adminitrator using alternative methods. <br />";

echo "Thank you for your understanding.<br /><br /> <i>The administration</i>";

}

?>

[kkobashi]

It's likely that the mail() function is crapping out and that your mail installation is incorrect. Check your PHP.INI file and make sure you have one of these two setup:

If you are on a Windows server
[mail function]
SMTP = your.smtp.host
sendmail_from = [e-mail]

If you are on a Linux server
[mail function]
sendmail_path = /pathto/sendmail -t
sendmail_from = [e-mail]

After you got that setup, modify the code below and save the file as sendmsg.php:

<?php
if ($_POST['btnSubmit']) {

  $to = "[e-mail]";
  $from = "From:[e-mail]";
  $subject = "Hello";
  $message = $_POST['message'];
  if (mail($to, $subject, $message, $from)) {
    echo "Your message was successfully sent.";
  }
  else {
    echo "There was an error in sending your message";
  }
}
else {
  $strOut = "<form id='frmSendMail' name='frmSendMail' action='sendmsg.php' method='post'>";
  $strOut .= "<textarea id='message name='message' cols='30' rows='5'></textarea>";
  $strOut .= "<input type='submit' name='btnSubmit' value='Send Message' />";
  $strOut .= "</form>";
  echo $strOut;
}
?>