Disable a link that has href="javascript:;" until option is selected
<p>I have a link I need to disable until a selection is made from a select box</p>

<pre><code>&lt;select id="shippingSelect" onchange="simpleCart.update();"&gt;
                    &lt;option value="nothing" selected="selected"&gt;Choose Shipping Location&lt;/option&gt;
                    &lt;option value="uk"&gt;UK - FREE&lt;/option&gt;
                    &lt;option value="world"&gt;Rest of World + £2.00&lt;/option&gt;
                &lt;/select&gt;

&lt;a href="javascript:;" class="simpleCart_checkout"&gt; Place Order &lt;/a&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>How can I disable the place order link until customer chooses shipping location?</p>

<p>This is what I have at the moment:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;script&gt;
    $('#shippingSelect').change(function() {
       if ($(this).val() != "nothing") {

          $('.place_order').slideDown();
       } else {
          $('.place_order').slideUp();

       }
    });
    &lt;/script&gt; 
</code></pre>

<p>Which works but I would rather have the link visible all the time just not clickable. Thanks</p>
