Well, it's pretty basic. You can't do your job if no one lets you do it. Telling a mechanic to work on a car without using wrenches is stupid.

If you need to get a job done and they won't let you get the job done, you need to find who the decision maker is and ask for help. You'd be amazed how powerful asking for help can be. It really makes people feel important, appeals to their ego, makes 'em more likely to assist, yada, yada, yada.

If the Unix sysadmin says no, ask him or her what alternatives you have. If they blow you off, then you can to your boss or bosses and lay out the situation. If you're in a political battle, remember that every time someone says no, ask for their help in finding an alternative. They usually wind up looking like the bad guy if they won't help. I've used this technique successfully quite a bit.

That being said, you can create simple graphs using a one pixel gif and then using using the height and width attributes of an img tag to generate the results you want. It's quick and easy, but not very customizable.

Cheers,
Ovid

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