function URLEncode(plaintext)
{
	// The Javascript escape and unescape functions do not correspond
	// with what browsers actually do...
	var SAFECHARS = "0123456789" +					// Numeric
					"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" +	// Alphabetic
					"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" +
					"-_.!~*'()";					// RFC2396 Mark characters
	var HEX = "0123456789ABCDEF";

	var encoded = "";
	for (var i = 0; i < plaintext.length; i++ ) {
		var ch = plaintext.charAt(i);
	    if (ch == " ") {
		    encoded += "+";				// x-www-urlencoded, rather than %20
		} else if (SAFECHARS.indexOf(ch) != -1) {
		    encoded += ch;
		} else {
		    var charCode = ch.charCodeAt(0);
			if (charCode > 255) {
			    alert( "Unicode Character '"
                        + ch
                        + "' cannot be encoded using standard URL encoding.\n" +
				          "(URL encoding only supports 8-bit characters.)\n" +
						  "A space (+) will be substituted." );
				encoded += "+";
			} else {
				encoded += "%";
				encoded += HEX.charAt((charCode >> 4) & 0xF);
				encoded += HEX.charAt(charCode & 0xF);
			}
		}
	} // for

	return encoded;
}

// this fixes an issue with the old method, ambiguous values
// with this test document.cookie.indexOf( name + "=" );
function getCookie( check_name ) {
  // first we'll split this cookie up into name/value pairs
  // note: document.cookie only returns name=value, not the other components
  var a_all_cookies = document.cookie.split( ';' );
  var a_temp_cookie = '';
  var cookie_name = '';
  var cookie_value = '';
  var b_cookie_found = false; // set boolean t/f default f

  for ( i = 0; i < a_all_cookies.length; i++ )
  {
    // now we'll split apart each name=value pair
    a_temp_cookie = a_all_cookies[i].split( '=' );


    // and trim left/right whitespace while we're at it
    cookie_name = a_temp_cookie[0].replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, '');

    // if the extracted name matches passed check_name
    if ( cookie_name == check_name )
    {
      b_cookie_found = true;
      // we need to handle case where cookie has no value but exists (no = sign, that is):
      if ( a_temp_cookie.length > 1 )
      {
        cookie_value = unescape( a_temp_cookie[1].replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, '') );
      }
      // note that in cases where cookie is initialized but no value, null is returned
      return cookie_value;
      break;
    }
    a_temp_cookie = null;
    cookie_name = '';
  }
  if ( !b_cookie_found )
  {
    return false;
  }
}