title: how to countdown to a date
body: <p>I am wondering if anyone can help me. After hours of searching tirelessly on here and the web I can't seem to find a simple countdown using jquery. I don't want to use any sort of plugin just a simple jquery code to countdown from a date. I have managed to find this code below. But even with this code placing it in my website nothing appears. I added the jquery file from jquery.com and added the proper divs with <code>counter</code> ID and nothing. If anyone can explain or show me how to make a simple countdown in a function that takes in a date format and returns a countdown I would appreciate the help.</p>
  
  <pre><code>var end = new Date('02/19/2012 10:1 AM');
  
      var _second = 1000;
      var _minute = _second * 60;
      var _hour = _minute * 60;
      var _day = _hour * 24;
      var timer;
  
      function showRemaining() {
          var now = new Date();
          var distance = end - now;
          if (distance &lt; 0) {
  
              clearInterval(timer);
              document.getElementById('countdown').innerHTML = 'EXPIRED!';
  
              return;
          }
          var days = Math.floor(distance / _day);
          var hours = Math.floor((distance % _day) / _hour);
          var minutes = Math.floor((distance % _hour) / _minute);
          var seconds = Math.floor((distance % _minute) / _second);
  
          document.getElementById('countdown').innerHTML = days + 'days ';
          document.getElementById('countdown').innerHTML += hours + 'hrs ';
          document.getElementById('countdown').innerHTML += minutes + 'mins ';
          document.getElementById('countdown').innerHTML += seconds + 'secs';
      }
  
      timer = setInterval(showRemaining, 1000);
  </code></pre>