James,

>I am writing a program for a 24 hour shop. There are several different locations. I need a book or a sample program in which the connection between the server and client goes down unexpectedly and might last for hours, but the clients can continue to work. The server or client needs to continue to try to update each other as soon as possible. Not a lot of resources should be used trying to update so the client can continue to do their jobs.
>
> Most of the books or examples I have seen assume you have access to the server. I have a couple of ideas to achieve my goal but want to know the most efficient way.

Are you talking about an app that runs on Fox tables, or are you talking about true client/server to SQL Server perhaps?