PROBLEM: Sending emial using gmail server

[Slesher]

Hello,

For some time I was trying to create and send automatic email using php script and gmail server and I always get this error:
Warning: mail() [function.mail]: Failed to connect to mailserver at "ssl://smtp.gmail.com" port 465, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set() in C:\xampp\php\PEAR\Mail.php on line 141

Here is my code

require_once ("mail.php");
ini_set("SMTP","ssl://smtp.gmail.com");
ini_set("SMTP_PORT", 465);

                   $to = $sqlmail['email'];
                   $from = $fromemail['email'];
                   $body = "Hello, \n\n";
                   $body .= "This is a request to borrow the following book\n";
                   $body .= "Title: $title\n";
                   $body .= "Author: $author\n";
                   $body .= "Year: $year\n";
                   $body .= "From the user $_SESSION[username]\n";
                   $subject = $title . " " . $author . " " . $year;
                   

                   
                   $host = "ssl://smtp.gmail.com";
                   $port = "465";
                   $username = "slesher.gmail.com";
                   $password = "*******";

                   $headers = array ('From' => $from,
                            'To' => $to,
                            'Subject' => $subject);
                   $smtp = new Mail();
                   $smtp ->factory('smtp',
                   array ('host' => $host,
                         'port' => $port,
                         'auth' => true,
                         'username' => $username,
                         'password' => $password));

                   $mail = $smtp->send($to, $headers, $body);

Any help would be greatly appreciated.