In replay to Itay’s post on configuration shortcuts, first and foremost is in some situations you can use .net Settings , which gives you intellisense, strict type and read/write capabilities. The downside is that it’s not available in ASP.NET , to extend Itay’s idea you can provide intellisense and strict types with a simple method: To make the code clearer you can set up some helper methods and use the following and now you get intellisense and type safety :)