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

    // document.write('<img src="http://weblog.rivalsdm.com/nocache/trans.gif?' + encoded + '" width=1 height=1 border=0>');

    return false;
}