UI Sortable and save to cookie

UI Sortable and save to cookie

Hi folks new here so please excuse me if I am asking a "stupid" question, but I will be honest 99% of JQuery documentation is "double dutch" to me and when I use the BigG to find tutorials etc. generally they are often worse.

Anyhow I am new/ish to JQuery and want to use UIsortable. so fa so good, got it all working. BUT ...

How do can you save the sorted positions? and having saved them how do you repopulate the lists.

Based on my frustrating afternoon's research this may be a good/popular "thread" if someone can explain in simple (and I mean simple) terms.

Here I go - this is just the UISortable portlets demo.

$(function() {
$(".column").sortable({
connectWith: '.column'
});

$( ".column" ).sortable({ cursor: 'crosshair' });

$(".portlet").addClass("ui-widget ui-widget-content ui-helper-clearfix ui-corner-all")
.find(".portlet-header")
.addClass("ui-widget-header ui-corner-all")
.prepend('<span class="ui-icon ui-icon-minusthick"></span>')
.end()
.find(".portlet-content");

$(".portlet-header .ui-icon").click(function() {
$(this).toggleClass("ui-icon-minusthick").toggleClass("ui-icon-plusthick");
$(this).parents(".portlet:first").find(".portlet-content").toggle();
});

$(".column").disableSelection();
});
});

Now, where do you set a cookie/save to a DB (yes I have the Cookie plugin and I can get it to work.) And more importantly, how do you recall the info to repopulate the list.

If someone can point me in the right direction I will be most appreciative.

It should only be a few lines of code (I assume) but I am not very familiar with JQuery/Java at all - and I do know I am not the only one.

Any help much appreciated.  Thanks in adavance