On a about:blank page, load jQuery and run the following commands:

foo = $("<img id='foo' src='http://www.google.com/images/srpr/logo1w.png'>");

foo.attr("height", 111);

console.log(foo.attr("height")); does *not* work in IE8

console.log(foo.get(0).getAttribute("height")); does return 111

The 'attr()' method does not return the expected values in IE8, but it does so in Firefox and Safari. This can be remedied by appending the IMG element to a DOM element (like 'html' or 'body') and calling 'attr()' again.