I am not familiar with jquery or ajax, but i do know it is whats needed to perform the action I want. I have created a wordpress plugin that updates a database table based on the users click. Right now it refreshes the page to return the results, but I want to stop the page refresh and return data via ajax I believe. If anyone is interested in helping me figure this out I would be very appreciative or even willing to pay.

Thanks!

Here is the plugin code:

function BoardLikeItGetDelim($postid)
{
  global $wp_rewrite;

  if($wp_rewrite->using_permalinks())
  {
    if(isset($_GET['mbpost']))
      return "?mbpost=".$postid."&";
    return "?";
  }
  else
  {
    if(isset($_GET['mbpost']))
      return "&mbpost=".$postid."&";
    return "&";
  }
}

function AddBoardLikeItButton($postid)
{
  global $user_ID;


  if(isset($_GET['board-like-it-action']) && $_GET['board-like-it-action'] == "like" && $_GET['bpid'] == $postid)
    BoardLikeItLike($user_ID, $_GET['bpid']);


  if(isset($_GET['board-like-it-action']) && $_GET['board-like-it-action'] == "unlike" && $_GET['bpid'] == $postid)
    BoardLikeItUnLike($user_ID, $_GET['bpid']);

  $num_likes = BoardLikeItGetNumLikes($postid);

  if(!BoardLikeItIsLiked($user_ID, $postid))
    echo "<HREF LINK='".BoardLikeItGetDelim($postid)."board-like-it-action=like&bpid=".$postid."#mngl-board-post-message-".$postid."'>Like</a>  ".$num_likes."" . "<br/>";
  else
    echo "<HREF LINK ='".BoardLikeItGetDelim($postid)."board-like-it-action=unlike&bpid=".$postid."#mngl-board-post-message-".$postid."'>Un-Like</a>  " . "<br/><span style='display: inline-block; padding: 0px; bottom: -5px; position: relative; border: 0px;'><IMAGE='". get_bloginfo('wpurl')."/wp-content/plugins/board-like-it/top-up.png' /></span><div style='-moz-border-radius: 4px;
    -khtml-border-radius: 4px;
    -webkit-border-radius: 4px;
    font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
    font-size: 10px;
    color: #000;
    background-color: #B8C9DB;
    width: 90%;
    margin: 0px;
    display: block;
    padding-top: 4px;
    padding-right: 5px;
    padding-bottom: 4px;
    padding-left: 6px;'>" . "<IMAGE='". get_bloginfo('wpurl')."/wp-content/plugins/board-like-it/thumb_up.png'/>  " .BoardLikeItShowLikers($postid). "like this." . "</div>";
}

function BoardLikeItShowLikers($postid)
{
  global $wpdb;
  $result = $wpdb->get_var($wpdb->prepare("SELECT `likers` FROM ".BoardLikeItGetDBName()." WHERE `mngl_id` = {$postid}"));
  $results = explode(',', $result);
  $names = "";

  if($results[0] != "")
    foreach($results as $r)
    {
      $userinfo = get_usermeta($r, 'user_login');
      $names .= $userinfo.", ";
    }

  return $names;
}

function BoardLikeItGetNumLikes($postid)
{
  global $wpdb;
  $result = $wpdb->get_var($wpdb->prepare("SELECT `likers` FROM ".BoardLikeItGetDBName()." WHERE `mngl_id` = {$postid}"));
  $results = explode(',', $result);

  if($results[0] != '')
    return count($results)."<br/><span style='display: inline-block; padding: 0px; bottom: -5px; position: relative; border: 0px;'><IMAGE='". get_bloginfo('wpurl')."/wp-content/plugins/board-like-it/top-up.png' /></span><div style='-moz-border-radius: 4px;
    -khtml-border-radius: 4px;
    -webkit-border-radius: 4px;
    font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
    font-size: 10px;
    color: #000;
    background-color: #B8C9DB;
    width: 90%;
    margin: 0px;
    display: inline-block;
    border: 0px;
    padding-top: 0px;
    padding-right: 5px;
    padding-bottom: 1px;
    padding-left: 6px;'>" . "<IMAGE='". get_bloginfo('wpurl')."/wp-content/plugins/board-like-it/thumb_up.png'/>  " .BoardLikeItShowLikers($postid). "likes this." . "</div>";
  else
    return "";
}

function BoardLikeItLike($user_ID, $postid)
{
  global $wpdb;
  $likers = array();
  $likersnew = array();
  $result = $wpdb->get_var($wpdb->prepare("SELECT `likers` FROM ".BoardLikeItGetDBName()." WHERE `mngl_id` = {$postid}"));
  $results = explode(',',$result);

  if($results[0] != "")
  {
    if(!in_array($user_ID, $results))
      $results[] = $user_ID;
    $likers = implode(',',$results);
    $wpdb->query($wpdb->prepare("UPDATE ".BoardLikeItGetDBName()." SET `likers` = '{$likers}' WHERE `mngl_id` = {$postid}"));
  }
  else
  {
    $likersnew[] = $user_ID;
    $likersnew = implode(',',$likersnew);
    $wpdb->query($wpdb->prepare("INSERT INTO ".BoardLikeItGetDBName()." (`mngl_id`, `likers`) VALUES ('{$postid}', '{$likersnew}')"));
  }
}


function BoardLikeItUnLike($user_ID, $postid)
{
  global $wpdb;
  $likers = array();
  $result = $wpdb->get_var($wpdb->prepare("SELECT `likers` FROM ".BoardLikeItGetDBName()." WHERE `mngl_id` = {$postid}"));
  $results = explode(',', $result);

  if(in_array($user_ID, $results))
  {
    $results = BoardLikeItRemoveFromArray($results, $user_ID);
    if(!empty($results))
    {
      $likers = implode(',', $results);
      $wpdb->query($wpdb->prepare("UPDATE ".BoardLikeItGetDBName()." SET `likers` = '{$likers}' WHERE `mngl_id` = {$postid}"));
    }
    else
    {
      $wpdb->query($wpdb->prepare("DELETE FROM ".BoardLikeItGetDBName()." WHERE `mngl_id` = {$postid}"));
    }
  }
}


function BoardLikeItIsLiked($user_ID, $postid)
{
  global $wpdb;
  $result = $wpdb->get_var($wpdb->prepare("SELECT `likers` FROM ".BoardLikeItGetDBName()." WHERE `mngl_id` = {$postid}"));
  $results = explode(',', $result);

  if(in_array($user_ID, $results))
    return true;
  else
    return false;
}

function BoardLikeItActivate()
{
  global $wpdb;
  $charset_collate = '';

  if($wpdb->has_cap('collation'))
  {
    if(!empty($wpdb->charset))
      $charset_collate = "DEFAULT CHARACTER SET $wpdb->charset";
    if(!empty($wpdb->collate))
      $charset_collate .= " COLLATE $wpdb->collate";
  }

  $table_sql = "CREATE TABLE ".BoardLikeItGetDBName()."(
  `mngl_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `likers` longtext NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`mngl_id`))
  {$charset_collate};";

  require_once(ABSPATH.'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php');
  dbDelta($table_sql);
}

function BoardLikeItGetDBName()
{
  global $wpdb;
  return $wpdb->prefix."board_like_it";
}

function BoardLikeItRemoveFromArray($arr, $key)
{
  $new = array();
  foreach($arr as $j => $i)
  {
    if($i != $key)
      $new[] = $i;
  }
  return $new;
}