CCK Text field / Maximum characters

Hello everyone,
CCK text field has a great option of setting up a limit for how many characters one can use for that field. This is very useful.
However, my users may not count letter by letter and if they exceed, then they will need to submit again.
I read somewhere ( but I can't remember where... I should have bookmarked i know) that one solution was to create a countdown counter so the user would know how many characters left he can use....
If anyone can help me finding this info again i would be very greatlful :)
Or if anyone can come up with a solution...
Wishing all of you a Happy New Year of the Pig :)
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