siggy.php ::
<?
Header ('Content-type: image/jpeg');
Header('Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
Header('Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT');
Header('Pragma: no-cache');
$COUNT_FILE = "hitcounter.dat";
if (file_exists($COUNT_FILE)) {
$fp = fopen("$COUNT_FILE", "r+");
flock($fp, 1);
$count = fgets($fp, 4096);
$count += 1;
fseek($fp,0);
fputs($fp, $count);
flock($fp, 3);
fclose($fp);
} else {
echo "Can't find file, check '\$file'<BR>";
}
// set the dimensions
$img_width = 240;
$img_height = 25;
// create the image
$image = imagecreate($img_width, $img_height);
// set the colours
$cool = imagecolorallocate($image, 81, 86, 96);
$black = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 0);
$white = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 255, 255);
$red = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 0, 0);
$grey = imagecolorallocate($image, 204, 204, 204);
$green = imagecolorallocate($image, 206, 129, 18);
$blue = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 255);
// set the background colour and border
imagefilledrectangle($image, 0, 0, $img_width, $img_height, $blue);
// set the font and print text
$font = '/var/www/html/verdana.ttf';
// ImageTTFText ($image, 8, 0, 10, 17, $black, $font, "Your IP Address is... ".$visitors);
ImageTTFText ($image, 8, 0, 10, 17, $black, $font, "Views: ".$count);
// output and destroy
imagepng($image);
imagedestroy($image);
?>
END
This will just put a blue bar with a nice counter on there

(if you have the hitcounter.dat file in the same dir)
example:
http://www.phazm.net/signature/siggy.php