Blogzerk's got a posse! Or at least a team in the Corporate 5K this year. We'll be sporting our race shirts with running Zerkie and can be found before and after the race at the Blogzerk tent on the infield.

If you are going to be at the race with your company's team, drop by and say "hi". If your company doesn't have a team and you want to run with Team Blogzerk, email me at info@blogzerk.com for details about joining our team.

Blogware has notified us that when posting an article, the Preview feature is not working. Articles can still be Saved as normal. We will update this post when we have more information.

UPDATED 9:45 PM ET: This has been resolved.

We were rummaging around the office the other day and found a bit of inspiration hiding under a half-eaten donut (I'm not sure how half a donut survived in our office, but be assured we are launching a full investigation). We decided to use this newly-found inspiration to create some new blog themes for Blogzerk. These themes are based on a Wordpress theme we saw and liked.

Then, as luck would have it, we found some more inspiration (stuck to a bit of serendipity) and created a new category in this blog so that you could view all the themes Blogzerk offers on a live blog. These are in addition to the standard Blogware templates. Here's a screenshot of the new Lime Two Point Oh theme:

Blogzerk is looking for Orlando-area businesses that want to start a blog. To get you started, we've devised a clever (if we do say so ourselves) contest that accomplishes this goal and gives the winner three free months one year of Blogzerk blog hosting.

To enter, sign up for a free trial blog and post an article about your business which includes (at least) the following:

• Business name
• Number of employees
• Industry/Specialty
• Web site address (if applicable)
• A trackback to this article

What you do with your blog after that it up to you. Use it to learn about blogging, post photos from your last company party, get the news out about a new product or service, ...

On April 15, 2006 we'll review all the trackbacks to pick a winner. The winner will have their blog activated and receive the first three months year of blog hosting for free. There is no obligation to continue with a paid blog for the winner or entrants, but we do hope you'll like Blogzerk and keep using it!

So, what are you waiting for? Enter today. The worst that could happen is you learn a bit about blogging and what the heck a trackback is.

Technorati tag: orlando

Technorati Tags: orlando

Blog consultant Josh Hallett has some good tips for businesses interested in starting a blog. He points out that like any business endeavor, knowing the background and current environment is important for success. Unfortunately, many businesses think that because something is on the Internet that it is easy and jump right in.

Taking a bit of time up front can prevent embarrassing mistakes and help ensure success. This is especially important for business blogs since they are a more relaxed--and personal--communication medium than most businesses are used to.

UPDATED 3/28/06 with final theme info.

If you have a Blogzerk blog, check out the new themes we've added:

• Blogzerk - Blue Two Point Oh
• Blogzerk - Lime Two Point Oh
• Blogzerk - Rust Two Point Oh
• Blogzerk - Green Two Point Oh
• Blogzerk - Pink Two Point Oh

These use an image header which is 950 px wide. This seems to work well for three column blogs and still looks good for two columns also. If you have visitors using less than a 1024x768 screen resolution, you should stick with the standard Blogware templates which are fluid.

These have been added to our theme page and we've created a new category for the Theme Gallery so you can see them in action.

The 3/11/06 update introduced a few bugs. Most of these have been fixed, however some remain. Here is the current status:

• Sometimes posts cannot be saved and all posting defaults are removed. Actively working on a fix. Will promote as soon as fixed and tested. UPATED: Fixed as of 6:00PM ET on 3/21/06
• Miscellaneous spelling and grammar errors on Web Servers Log page. UPDATED: Fixed March 21.
• Posted articles don't show in Calendar. Working on a fix. Targeted to promote March 30th.

Blogware will be conducting an unscheduled maintenance window tonight 16 March 2006 to improve performance on our
database machines for the Blogware Environment. This will ensure that the ennvironment responds more quickly
to client requests. The blogs and the management interfaces will be offline during the maintenance.

Date: 16 March EST
Start Time: 10:00 PM EST
Duration: 2 Hours

Impact: During this windows, the Publishers' Control Panel and blogs will not be accessible. Each interface will be made live as soon as it is available to minimize impact on end users.

Blogware (which powers Blogzerk) is currently experiencing slowness when loading blogs and the Publisher's Control Panel. This issue is being worked on and will will update this post when we have more information. (and, yes, we do see the irony of posting this here :-)

UPDATED 8:05 PM ET: This issue has been resolved.

The Inside AdWords blog has started a series called AdWords 101 which they kicked off yesterday with a post about the building blocks of AdWords. Check out this series and the rest of the blog for tips on using AdWords.