Hah, if that is a dumb question... then I am really in trouble, since I can only answer half of it!
To see what your signal strength is, you can scroll over to Player Information, and scroll down through the various screens, until you reach Signal Strength - it will display a %.
I am seeing around 30-40% in my basement, far from the Linksys router, but it only causes concerns while the buffer is filling.
As for viewing the buffer, I am not sure how to see that...