footerstick?

For my own site I use the technique explained at http://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2005/08/29/ . In page.tpl.php I moved #footer out of #page and put it below it, like

<div id="page">
   ...
</div>
<div id="footer">
   ...
</div>

I think with this change your method will work too, and I think that this moving of #footer should be standard in Zen.

I've got this working using #1 method, and a couple of bits from http://www.alistapart.com/articles/footers/. In my case I'm working on a subtheme using the fixed width layout. The css changes applied are:

html,
body
{
	height: 100%;
}

#page,
#footer, /* needed to maintain width */
#closure-blocks
{
   margin-left: auto;
   margin-right: auto;
   width: 960px;        
}

#page  
{
	min-height: 100%; /* needed to force footer down to bottom with long page */
	padding-bottom: 25px; 	/* my footer is a fixed height because of image, but probably should use ems */
}

#footer
{
	height: 25px;  /* enough space for the background image, but probably should use ems */
	margin-top: -25px;
}

did you clear your cache tables in administer -> performance after altering the css file?