The css
function accepting an array wasn't implemented until 1.9.
You'll probably have to do it by hand if you're using 1.8 (loop through the values one at a time).
var styleNames = ["width", "height", "color", ...etc... ];
var i;
var $elem = jQuery(this);
for (i = 0; i < styleNames.length; ++i) {
alert(styleNames[i] + " = " + $elem.css(styleNames[i]));
}