This is slightly different implementation of the jquery textarea text limit counter found at: http://www.scriptiny.com/2012/09/jquery-input-textarea-limiter/. The main difference is that the user is not cutoff when he reaches the limit of the allowed characters but he is notified via the counter that his text is longer than expected.

The idea behind it is to have a textarea that accepts user input and there is  a limit in the characters that you want you are allowed to type in the textarea. While you type in characters in the textarea a counter is updated that shows the remaining characters. The number is correct even when you reload the page and the area is pre-populated with text. This particular demo uses jquery 1.5.1