On Wednesday Feburary 17th, Marcellus paid a visit to his alma mater Redan High School in Stone Mountain, Ga.  At least once per year, Marcellus speaks to the students at Redan about Information Technology; usually during the school's career day.  This visit, however, was the result of an open invitation from Career Technology instructor Ms. Rhonda Malone.  Ms. Malone teaches beginning and intermediate website design classes.  Topics of discussion on the day included "A Little Known Black History Fact", "Best Practices in Web Development" and "Anatomy of a Project".

Fittingly for black history month, Marcellus revealed that Network Solutions, Inc - one of the linchpins of the Internet - was founded by an African American.  Emmit J. McHenry started Network Solutions in 1979 and grew it into a multi-million dollar company.  Mr. McHenry sold the company in the mid 90's and has since created what is now one of the largest African American-owned businesses.  While maybe not fully grasping what he had accomplished, the students were entertained by the fact that Mr. McHenry sold his company for several million only to watch it sell for billions 5 years later!

With the second topic, "Best Practices in Web Development", Marcellus offered tips and techniques currently used in "real-life" website development.  Among many things he talked about using CSS for styling to help separate appearance and content.  He also discussed DIV tags vs tables for layout, Macromedia Flash and tips for search engine optimization (SEO).

The most interesting discussion of the day revolved around the process of creating a website, from start to finish.  The students enjoyed learning about the different aspects of creating a websites, however they were most interested in the website used to demonstrate the process.  Marcellus used his latest project, www.omarihardwick.com, as an example of the website creation process.  Omari Hardwick is an Hollywood actor known for roles in the popular TV show "Dark Blue" and the movies "Next Day Air", "Gridiron Gang" and "Miracle at St. Anna".  Not only is Omari a well-known actor, he's also very well liked by the ladies!  Their attention then squarely in focus, the students asked several questions about creating the website, such as "How long does it take?" and "How much does it cost?"  They also tossed in a few questions about Omari!

So needless to say, by the end of the day ,the students were well informed about website development; and also managed to get in a little entertainment!