In order to build something great, you have to start at a young age.

The story of Colonel Sanders (KFC guy) says otherwise. It's a remarkable story, and we thought it was worth writing about.

At age 16, Sanders faked his age to enlist in the United States Army. After being honourably discharged a year later, he was hired as a labourer on the railway, where he was soon fired for fighting with a coworker. He then studied law, but his legal career was cut short after getting into a fight with a client. Sanders was forced to move back in with his mom and get a job selling life insurance, which he got also got fired from for insubordination.

Sanders launched his first startup at the age of 30 – a ferry boat service over the Ohio River. Unfortunately, a bridge was built nearby, which made this service redundant. He then started an oil lamp business, but this ultimately failed when electricity arrived in rural America.

In 1927, Sanders took charge of a gas station in Kentucky, but the economic slump that was the Great Depression forced the business to close in 1930. Despite this, he opened a second service station later that year, where he started selling his homemade chicken to truck drivers for a bit of extra cash.

The service station grew to become Sanders Court and Café. At age 49, he bought a motel but was forced to sell it at the start of World War II. Things were looking pretty bleak. Then, in 1939, his service station burned down to the ground.

Sanders rebuilt the restaurant, bigger and better than before. Then, in 1956, just as the service station was building traction, a new highway which bypassed it was commissioned. Sanders sold the building.

With nothing but a $105 monthly social security cheque to his name, Sanders made one last-ditch attempt at success. He was 62 when he opened another service station, which soon became known as Kentucky Fried Chicken. Sanders had been trying to franchise his restaurant for some time. His recipe had been rejected 1009 times before anyone accepted it. In 1956, Sanders travelled the country to sell his secret spice blend and patented pressure cooking technique. Sanders taught kitchen staff his methods, and restaurants paid him 5 cents for every bird they sold.

By 1963 – and at the age of 66 – Sanders had 600 locations, including overseas franchises in Canada, Mexico and the UK. In 1964 he sold the business to investors for $2 million ($20 million in today's money). The company went public 2 years later, and by 1970, KFC had 3,000 restaurants across 48 countries.

Today, there are around 25,000 KFC outlets in 147 countries around the world.

Decades of persistence, determination and resilience in the face of adversity left Colonel Sanders with an astounding legacy, especially given that he made his fortune in his mid-70s. No spring chicken, but not too old to chase his dreams and achieve ultra success.

The odds may not be stacked in your favour today, but that doesn't mean you can't win. You just have to keep playing the game.

The iPhone 15 is being manufactured in India. China remains Apple's primary manufacturing hub, and whilst they have been manufacturing iPhones in India since 2017, Apple have significantly ramped up production this year.

Here are the leaks

iOS 17 was launched on Monday 18th September. If your device is compatible, you can update to iOS 17 in Settings > General > Software Update.

New features include StandBy, live voicemail, interactive widgets, and Apple Maps offline.

If you want to see all the new features in action, Nick Ackerman has a great 16-minute demonstration video here.

As usual, the interface receives a visual refresh. Some of the icons look a bit more aesthetic and some of the menus have been cleaned up and re-organised.

iOS updates always improve on previous versions, so you'll benefit from updating, even if the new features don't appeal to you.

However, new software versions always have some bugs. We haven't seen or read about them yet, but can guarantee that there will be reports of software corruption, data loss, battery drain and app crashes. Most users won't have any issues, and can freely enjoy the new features in iOS 17, but some users will inevitably run into problems when they update. Apple has a team of software developers working frantically around the clock to fix these bugs, which is why they release subsequent software updates so frequently.

I usually recommend waiting until the ".2" version. You almost certainly won't miss out on anything by waiting for a few weeks, and once you've made the jump, there's no going back. Take 2 minutes to check that your data is backed up first, just to be safe.

Will updating to iOS 17 kill my battery life?

Most users will indeed experience decreased battery life for the first two days following a major software update. Even after the update has finished being installed, there's still a ton of background processes occurring, and these will consume more power. The device undergoes a series of complex operations to organise all of your new and existing files, apps and other bits of software. This is called indexing. Most of your apps will automatically download updates so that they are optimised for the new OS.

If battery drain persists for more than 48 hours, you may be one of the unlucky few who's device does not like the OS - in which case, you'll have to sit and wait for the developers to fix it. It could also be coincidence. Batteries degrade over time. If your phone is more than three years old, the battery itself may have been on its way out anyway. We are more likely to notice something following a big change, which can lead us to drawing false causations.

If you have an iPhone XS, XR, SE 2, SE 3, 11, 12, 13 or 14, you're good.

2017 models, iPhone 8 and iPhone X, will not update to iOS 17. They will still receive security updates for at least two years though. 

It feels like yesterday the iPhone X was the all-new, cutting-edge piece of premium hardware. Time & tech moves fast...

FYI: Apple's software support is good. 6 years of updates plus 2 years of security updates is a solid return on a smartphone.

iPadOS 17 arrives at the same time as iOS 17, and brings most of the same new features and improvements to the iPad.

Supported devices are:

iPad Pro 1st Gen and iPad 5th Gen will not update to iPadOS 17.

It's unlikely that you'll notice anything or have any problems by sticking with your iPhone 8 on iOS 16. As mentioned above, you'll still get security updates, which are important for protecting your sensitive data. All the third-party apps that you use (WhatsApp, Instagram, Waze, NatWest etc.) will continue to work as normal for years to come.

Eventually app developers will stop releasing updates for iOS 16, but this won't occur for quite a while. You can still use WhatsApp on an iPhone 5S, and you can still do mobile banking on an iPhone 6S.

Yes, the newer models are better, but if you're happy with your old phone, then stick with it! Nothing has changed.

"Web Cookie" was derived from the term "Magic Cookie", which is a packet of data that a program receives and sends back unchanged. This was derived from "Fortune Cookie", which a crisp and sugary cookie wafer made with a piece of paper containing information - typically a vague prophecy or lucky numbers. You'll associate fortune cookies with Chinese takeaway, but they actually originate from 19th-century Japan.

A cookie is a small text file that a site stores on your device when you visit the site. The site can then access that file whilst you are on the site. Cookies are necessary for a site to remember you as you navigate through it's pages.

Web browsers support cookies, which allows the site to store information about your visit. The site can then use the information to tailor and improve the users experience. It also enables them to collect an aggregate set of usage statistics.

Let's say you spend some time watching car reviews and funny cat videos on YouTube. You close your computer and come back to YouTube the next day. You're already logged in, you can see which videos you watched yesterday, and resume them from the exact second that you stopped watching. Your feed has been refreshed with suggestions of similar content, including videos of cats driving cars.

Cookies save the products in your cart. They remember your password and your shipping address. They authenticate that it's you accessing sensitive information. They maintain your visual and audio preferences, such as light or dark mode.

Sites are required by law to ask your permission to store bits of data in the form of cookies.

There are occasions where you might want to reject cookies, like when you're entering personal information such as your social security number or bank details, or when you don't recognise or trust the site.

Generally, they are useful, convenient, and harmless, so it's good to "Accept Cookies" in most cases.

If you made it through this post, reward yourself with a proper cookie. Soft oatmeal & raisin with cinnamon and a cup of tea for me. What's your go to? 🤤