need some help! this is sort of a 2 part question..

ive done a decent amount of programming but ive never really worked with dates, ive googled and all that but finding nothing.

part 1:

so lets say i have some variable:
Public Date adStartTime

i want it to be in this format: yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss
so i just do adStartTime = (some date formatter) + (2011/08/08 08:08:08) \*which dont work

whats the proper way to get it to be that way?? i keep getting errors and such.. id prefer to do everything in Date instead of using strings/int..

part 2:

once i get the date in that format i will need to insert that into db, can i insert the date in that format? or will i need to change it?

reason i will need the time is because i am setting up automated ads for new company securities and sometimes the ad will run for one day or maybe 1/2 day so i will need to set the timer correctly.

thanks for any help..