I love extensions, they make my life so much easier. Simple things that I can do in a coupole lines of code, I now do in even fewer thanks to my almighty extensions. Here are a couple of super simple ones for easy interaction with DropDownLists

Sometimes it is a pain to set the selected value of a DropDownList, if it is there, it works fine, but if not, it is a pain in the butt. Here is what I use to set mine:

DropDownList1.Set("some_value");

It's just that easy, and if it's not in the ddl, it will work just as well. Here is the extension code:

public static void Set(this DropDownList ddl,
 string findByVal)
{ // attempts to set a DDL to the 'findByVal'
  try
  { 
    ddl.SelectedIndex = ddl.Items
     .IndexOf(ddl.Items.FindByValue(findByVal)); 
  }
    catch { };
}

Once again, we all know the code for this, but an extension makes it easier, and also hanldes it if the item is not there:

DropDownList1.RemoveItem("Any");

And the code:

public static void RemoveItem(this DropDownList ddl, 
 string item)
{
  try { ddl.Items.Remove(ddl.Items.FindByText(item)); }
  catch { }
}

Normally I discourage a blank catch{} but in this case, the only error you would be encountering is if the item is not there, so unless you are worried bout that, you should be fine.