Open Popup Window on table column click

Open Popup Window on table column click

I am using:

      echo("<td class='ddclick'><a href='#'><b>$value</b></a>");

to make a column clickable and then when clicked I need to open a pop-up window.  I use the click event to get the data I need to pass to the new widow.  This is working.

Then I use window.open(URL...) to open the window.

 Now, I need to stop the information from the click event of the href from being passed to the browser.  Is the href the proper way to do this or can I make it clickable via jQuery?

It does open a new page in firefox but generates an error in IE 8. 

Is there a jQuery way to open a pop-up window that will work in IE and FF?

Thanks,
Bill