Suggestion: Move the connection string to the web.config file

Dare I say, where it belongs? I'm really curious why its in the settings.txt file. We rely on our automated deployment server to use xml transformations to merge the appropriate xxx.config for the target environment so this causes a slight issue. We have to modify the DataSettingsManager class to read it from the web.config. That class just seems overkill when you can use ConfigurationManager to get the connection strings.

I agree this should be in web.config then we can use transform files to save changing settings all the time and also if you deploy to Azure you can take advantage that you can store the web.config connection strings in the cloud.

oh please don't do that.  leave it exactly where it is.