plea for help with getting email to work

I have been trying to get the built in email feature to work, I am using the registration mod and its working fine.

Problem 1

If I have send email confermation set, the user fills out the registration form and hits submit and the window just hangs, no email sent. It does though show up in the users screen in the admin settings.

Second issue

If I use the forgot password it says that the email was sent but the user never gets an email.

I got it working in Gallery2 but have been trying to get this working for a week now and am not sure were to start looking

thank you in advance.