A quick code snippet that can be particularly useful when implementing a models tier in an Umbraco solution. This code I usually implement in a base class, giving inheriting classes access to the method. The below method uses generics to retrieve a property from a node by it's alias:

using umbraco;
using umbraco.interfaces;
using umbraco.NodeFactory;

internal Node currentNode = new Node();

internal T GetProperty<t>(String propertyAlias)
{
	T result = default(T);

	try
	{
		if (currentNode.HasProperty(propertyAlias))
		{
			IProperty property = currentNode.GetProperty(propertyAlias);
			result = (T)Convert.ChangeType(property.Value, typeof(T));
		}
	}
	catch { }
	
	return result;
}