How do I get unlimited potion effect?

Me and a friend of mine were making a parkour map and we thought it would be handy if there was a way to give the players a unlimited potion effect like jump boost or speed.

You can use command blocks, type in the chat window /give username 137 with commands enabled (if you're OP), and it will give you a command block. You need to be OP and in creative mode to use these. Place it and right click it, and you will see a text field where you can type

/effect @p <effect_id> 1000000 [amplifier].

This will give the closest player to the block 1000000 seconds of the effect when it's activated with redstone. Effect id's are listed on this page, the first column is the number you'll have to use as <effect_id>. The amplifier can be any number between 1 and 255. Normal potions will give either 1 or 2 as amplification. For example, to give the player speed 2, the command has to be

/effect @p 1 1000000 2.

or for jump boost 5, you'd get

/effect @p 8 1000000 5.

You should watch out that any amplifier value between 128 and 250 will disable jumping, and any value above 251 will decrease jump height.

If you activate the command block with a button, for example, you'll get almost infinitely speed 2.

A command block with time 0, like /effect @p <effect_id> 0 will disable the effect when powered.

There's more information about command blocks at the minecraft wiki.

1.8 snapshots Edit:

In the 1.8 snapshots, an extra parameter can be added to the command, which will hide particles when set to true. This will remove the curly particles around your head, whilst still giving the effect. eg. /effect @p 8 1000000 1 true.

Also, as Zoweb pointed out, command blocks are now obtained using the command /give <playername> command_block, instead of the id 137.

I suggest using a Beacon. Beacons provide ONE of the following powers:

The five primary powers are:

Speed: Increased movement (similar to a potion of swiftness).

Haste: Increased mining speed.

Resistance: Increased armor rating.

Jump Boost: Increased jumping distance and height.

Strength: Increased melee damage (similar to a potion of strength).

Level 4 beacon structures can also select a secondary power. This can either be Regeneration or a level II variation of the selected primary power. When selecting the level II variant, Regeneration is no longer provided by the Beacon.

You can also have more than one beacon and select a different effect for each one.

You set a command block up, for example, for Speed II you would write

/effect <playername> 1 <any valid number>

and then you wire it up to a redstone clock, then it will constantly effect and re-effect .

To give yourself ∞ length of a potion, you could either use a command block or you could just type it in chat (YOU MUST BE OP).
Both ways are very similar or exactly the same if you are using 14w11b or over.

In Command Block or While Using 14w11b Or Over

Type in /effect @p [your effect id - go to this link to get the id's] 9999 [strength - remember that 255 (the max) will usually cancel it out so maybe try 100. If you try the effect Jump Boost (8), and you make the strength be 250, this will cancel all jumping (which can actually be quite useful!)] Remember that to get a command block in 14w11b or over, you have to make sure to type in /give <playername> minecraft:command_block, not /give <playername> 137. Though in below versions you can use /give <playername> 137.

In Chat While Using Under 14w11b

Type in /effect <playername> [effect id] 9999 [strength]

Edit
Now, in 1.8, you can write the name of the potion instead of the ID.