Build up jQuery-UI dialogs on the fly

application.js

// Creates a jQuery UI dialog on the fly, every time a link .user-link is clicked,
// dialog content will be loaded from the url specified by the clicked link

$(function(){
    $(".user-link").live('click', function(){
      var link = $(this);
      $("<div><img src='" + BASEPATH + "images/small-spinner.gif' />  </div>")
        .dialog({
          autoOpen: true, //for info, true is default
          modal: true,
          title: 'Apps used by ' + link.attr('data-name'),
          width: '720',
          minHeight: '400',

          open: function(){
            $(this).load(link.attr('href'));
          },
          close: function(){
            $(this).dialog('destroy');
          }
        });
      return false;
    });
}

$dialog typo or intended?

Also, you need to close your img tag at least with a >

And why autoOpen false, followed immediately by open? It's not that it will be reused

$dialog is in this case not necessary indeed.
And yes, it's easier to just let it autoOpen here :-)
gist updated

todo: error handling