I've used a few jQuery and javascript based tabbing solutions, but keep finding myself opting to use this one when faced with a UI that needs tabs. It's very flexible, simple to setup and, well, just a pretty elegant solution:

http://www.sunsean.com/idTabs/

There are a bunch of examples there, which of course you access via some tabs :-) . The examples show how versatile the plugin is (you can arrange your tabs pretty much any way you want). A code snippet for each example is visible via an expanding panel.

One thing you might want to is look at how the css is setup for the tabs, there are some nice hacks/workarounds to get rid of link edges (the border that can appear when clicking a tab).

Definitely one to reach for when you want to get some groovy tabs into place.