SQL & PL/SQL

Hi ,
i have a few questions :

1)
how can i actually capture the date as dd-mm-yyyy 00:00:00 ?
this is because if i insert the sysdate into a date field it'll automatically capture the time as the current time though from the document i read it says otherwise

and for this function to_date(sysdate , 'DDMMYYYY HH24 AM') it seems to capture only the dd mm yyyy instead of the hours as well is this suppose to work this way ?

2)

from this query it returns :
select * from nls_session_parameters
where parameter in ('NLS_DATE_FORMAT' , 'NLS_TIME_FORMAT') ;

DD-MON-RR & HH.MI.SSXFF AM

but when i insert the sysdate into a date column and do a select it gives me 7/31/2006 format ?

3) if the date in the field is 7/31/2006 does it really capture as 7/31/2006 00:00:00 ?




pls advise
tks & rdgs