My improvements on the Category Count module by Zac Gordon - Wide Sky Web Company Description:
Returns the number of entries for a given category.
Example:
{exp:catcount cat_id="33" status="open|closed"}
Returns 3
Parameters:
channel=“posts|events” Filters the results for only the channels you provide. Optional.
cat_id="1" The id for the category that you want to output the number of entries for.
status="open|closed" Determines the status of entries you want to count. Default setting is "open"
expired="yes" Will include entries that have expired.