Serialized Objects between Java Swing and Java Servlets

I am trying to serialize a some simple strings on a servlet before streaming them to a java swing program, but i am experiencing some problems... can anyone help me?

Here is my servlet:

public class swingServlet extends HttpServlet{
public void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res)
                  throws ServletException, IOException{

res.setContentType("application/octet-stream");

String name1="joe";
String name2="mo";

try
{
   ObjectOutputStream ois = new ObjectOutputStream(res.getOutputStream());
   ois.writeObject(name1);
   ois.writeObject(name2);
   ois.flush();
   ois.close();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
   e.printStackTrace();
}

}
}


And here is part my swing program:

try
{
URL host = new URL("http://localhost:8080/servlet/swingServlet?x=hello&y=world");

      HttpURLConnection con = (HttpURLConnection)host.openConnection();      
      con.setRequestMethod("POST");
                                
      InputStream inputstream = con.getInputStream();
                  
      ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(con.getInputStream());
                JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(this, ois.readObject());
                ois.close();            
      inputstream.close();
}
catch(IOException ioe){System.out.println(ioe.getMessage());}
catch (ClassNotFoundException ce){System.err.println(ce);}


I can send the name value pairs from the swing program to the servlet, but can not receive any variables back (these should be displayed in message dialogs for testing purposes)... i don't want to use a '.out' or xml file to store the serialized data.

The error I am getting is: "Invalid stream header".

Any help is very much appreiciated.

Thanks,

Vinny.