I usually upgrade some of the parts in my fastest computer every few years. I would then transfer the old parts to my other computer. I would eventually upgrade my mother's computer using the parts from my second computer.

I decided to install Windows 7 on my mother's computer a few days before Microsoft stopped providing security updates for Windows XP. I found out that her motherboard didn't support the Windows 7 bootable DVD. The BIOS updates stopped before Windows 7 was released. A Google search of the chipset did provide a few different hacks to install Windows 7, but I didn't want to spend that much time and effort just trying to install Windows 7. I didn't want to upgrade my system yet so I decided to purchase parts for her computer. I bought an i5 processor, motherboard with onboard video, and 8GB of memory. I also ended up buying a SATA HD and DVD drive since the old IDE drives couldn't be connected to the new motherboard. After I bought these parts I realized that I also needed to upgrade the power supply since I couldn't connect the old one to the new motherboard. I had to replace every part in the case. It would have been cheaper to do the Windows 7 hack, but I prefer the perform improvements from the upgrades.

That was Baaaaa

Our company switched to Cisco IP phones from an aspect phone system back when IE7 was just coming out. I don't know how much our company saved, but those who knew said it was a lot. The only limitation now is that the client software can only be installed on a system running IE6. Here is the field notice stating the issue. That means that we are stuck with Windows XP unless our company pays Cisco about $300,000 to upgrade their software. There is no problem with upgrading to IE7 or IE8 after the fact, but the client software can only be installed or reinstalled with IE6. All of the web based applications that we use work fine with IE7 and IE8. Unless my company has to start using some software that won't work on Windows XP, they are not going to spend the money on the upgrade.

I think the price increased to $30 million. There was an article posted last year that mentioned that the price went up and that they would discontinue the space tourism after this year.