Onto the notebook
trolleys. The only successful deployment of these that I have heard of is from
Canadian International where the technician comes with the trolley! Most schools
I speak to comment on how hard things are with the vertical nature of school
buildings in Hong Kong. HKI assign their
laptops to floors for this reason. It has been a while since I have spoken to
David or Francis so I will try to call out and get an update.

The trolley that IBM
and Worldlink sourced for the Australian International for 30 laptops was like a
big “Brownbuilt” metal cabinet on wheels and was very unmanageable as it was
really hard to get to the power inlets to ensure that they were all
charging.

Given all of this, I
have not really done much to follow up on supply of these although I did meet a
guy called Marco Leung from Foshan in Guandong on a number of occasions. Marco
makes the “NoteBus” trolley for RM in the UK and he was
interested in developing partnerships between he and his clients in the PRC and
me and mine in HK. He is very keen to do business and regularly travels to HK. I
have attached his flyer about the NoteBus Trolley which he sent me. I have not
actually set eyes on one as they are all put into containers and sent to the
UK. If you have some interest, I can
easily arrange a visit and take a lot of photos, video etc. They look as if they
are only made as 16 notebook models. Form the look of it, it would not scale to
30.

The best trolley I have
seen for large numbers of notebooks remains the PCLocs ones put together by
James Symons in Perth. See http://www.laptoptrolleys.com/laptoptrolleys-maxilab-30-bay.htm
The open, yet really secure design offers the best in flexibility and access to
the laptops to plug in the chargers. The PC Locs trolleys get great reviews in
Australia where many schools wheel
them across open-plan schools which still have some stairwells. The very best
thing about James’ design is the low centre of mass. There have been a couple of
reports of these trolleys falling over and hurting kids and at least one I have
read about a trolley falling down a stairwell! Being a Perth boy myself, I know
James well and he has told me that he is now getting his trolleys assembled in
the PRC. I will make contact and ask about the logistics of getting them to
Hong Kong.

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