Date/Time Calculations in MS Access 2002 using a MySQL backend

[bluerocket]

I have searched this group, and am not finding the answer I am looking
for -- hope you can help.

I have a front-end MS Access database hooked via a MyODBC link to a
MySQL database.

A modified date is going into the database.

Need to be able to perform calculations on the dates in order for
newly added notes to show up in bold on a report.

Having trouble reconciling now() with the date and time that is in the
mySQL database. After some different trials, I ended up putting both
dates in MySQL as a varchar. I know this isn't ideal, but it was
giving me the formats that I wanted on the front end.

Modified date is going into the varchar as now() from a form before
update event.

I know that this needs to be gutted and re-designed, but does anyone
have a suggestion as to backend field set up, along with the correct
way to make this date/time user friendly on the front-end forms?

Thanks!

[bluerocket]

Solved my own issue, in case anyone ever checks this in the future --
set mysql fields to datetime. The use MS Access properties to make
that show up in the format you want it (ie., short date, etc).