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Oracle Cloud DNS services for life!

Oracle is honoring Dynamic DNS lifetime subscriptions from Dyn even after the acquisition. That's pretty amazing given Oracle's reputation. I know this because my subscription from 2002 is still available! History of Dyn The history of Dyn (originally DynDNS) is a classic "dorm room to

China home broadband + mobile annual prices

The prices of home broadband and mobile phone plans have really gone down in the past 15 years in China. Here are my notes from Shanghai. What this means is the quality of life has really gone up. From 3G to 5G-A (5.5G); postage stamp grainy video to 4K

HotelTonight HT Perks review

HotelTonight Perks is not a loyalty program. There is very little it offers to create loyalty. Is it designed for die-hard AirBnB customers that have zero idea how to book a hotel cheaply using OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) nor know what other loyalty programs offer? The heading already tells you

Don't bother with Apple Pay T-money if you are a tourist

Apple Pay support for T-money - used for transit payments in Korea - was announced in July 2025, but did you know tourists cannot use it? You're better off buying a SIM+T-money combo card or eSIM + T-money card online. Buy a card with unlimited data + T-money for

Funny: Apple loves Windows XP Pro

I was cleaning up my data and found this old gem.

Alipay, Mastercard or Visa when paying in overseas

In this example, I will show how paying by Mastercard is the cheapest option between Alipay, Mastercard and Visa when paying in Korea using a credit card that doesn't have foreign transaction fees. MOX is one such card in Hong Kong. Sign up for MOX using my referral

Payments in Taiwan are still a work in progress

If you want to reminiscence how the early days of non-cash payments used to be, go to Taiwan. It's still a decent amount of cash, stored-value card (EasyCard), and digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay) here and there, combined with LINE Pay which no one outside of Taiwan

Why you should have an iPhone when traveling to japan

There's a reason iPhone is more popular than Android phones in Japan. Aside from user interface design elegance on iOS, iPhones work better with Suica, one of many mobile payment systems in Japan. Suica can be used for transportation (trains, buses, taxis), at convenience stores and retail, as

Trip.com Rewards loyalty program review

Trip.com's loyalty program offers some of the best returns if you spend at least $10K per year on travel (flights, hotels, car rentals, tours, etc.) when paired with credit card promo codes. You will also save hours of vacation/holiday planning time when compared with other apps/

Agoda.com AgodaVIP loyalty program review

A review of the Agoda.com VIP loyalty program including the recently introduced Diamond tier in 2026.