My approach is like this :
when the application starts, it ask the user to input the server address.
Then it connects to the server.
An then the user can book a record and search for record(s) without disconnecting and connecting again.
I used socket connection too, I thought I'm the only one who likes to burdening myself by using socket

.
I hope this will help.
Jeffry Kristianto Yanuar
SCJP 5.0
SCJA SCJD (Working on UrlyBird 1.3.2 : almost done)