title: Count Files based on the first two letters
body: <p>I would love it if someone could help me. I know nearly nothing about Python, so please excuse the naivety. I have spent two days reading through this site trying to get beyond where I am at. </p>
  
  <p>I wrote this code (well saw it on the this site for the most part):</p>
  
  <pre><code>    import os
      path = '/the/path/to/the/I want/to/count'
      file_count = sum((len(f) for _, _,f in os.walk(path)))
      print "Number of files: ",file_count
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I get my file count, but it takes a while. Is there faster code? And it went into sub directories I presume as the file count was higher then what I expected. </p>
  
  <p>My ultimate goal is to get a count of files based on the first two letters of each file. ie. AL, AR, AZ. Could I possibly get an example of what I would have to add for that?  </p>