"Dean J", The Java Ranch has thousands of visitors every week, many with surprisingly similar names. To avoid confusion we have a naming convention, described at http://www.javaranch.com/name.jsp . We require names to have at least two words, separated by a space, and strongly recommend that you use your full real name. Please choose a new name which meets the requirements. Thanks.
To get a String from a StringBuffer use the toString() method of the StringBuffer object. To get a StringBuffer from a String, create a new StringBuffer with the String as its constructor argument.