I really like the simplicity of the date time parse method

o1.OrderDate = DateTime.Parse("12/7/2007 1:05 PM");

Use String.Format to convert pesky number or dates to strings

String.Format("{0:###.###}", HousingRatio)

String.Format("{0:d}", Datetime.Now)

I like to use this snippet in a catch statement to display an error to the user without stopping the application

catch (Exception ex) { lblErr.Text = string.Format("{0}", ex.Message); }