Palindrome program help

[Nel]

Hey guys, so I'm brand new to java and this forum. This is my first post. I seem to be having difficulty with this program. I know I have a logic error in my code, but I can't seem to locate it. The program is supposed to take any series of characters, including numbers and test if it is a palindrome. If any symbols !@#$%^&* are entered, they are to be ignored. (So 1@23!43#2-1 is a palindrome.) It works fine for numbers, but it says every string input is a palindrome. I havnt gotten far into the book, so my tools are limited to basic string manipulations and basic loop structures. Please help by giving only suggestions or hints; no code as I am trying to learn =) Thanks! (Also, how do I put code into the post without Copy/Paste and manual formatting? I couldn't find/understand in the FAQ.)

import java.util.Scanner;
public class Palindrome 
{
     public static void main(String[]args)
	{
	    Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);
	    String userStr, newStr, compareStr;
	    int right, left;
	    newStr = "";
	    compareStr = "";
	    
                 System.out.print("Please enter any sequences of characters: ");
	    userStr = keyboard.nextLine();
	    newStr = userStr.toLowerCase();
	    compareStr = newStr.trim();
	    compareStr =  compareStr.replaceAll("\\D", "");
	    
                 right = compareStr.length() - 1;
	    left = 0;
			
	       while(left<right && left!=right)
		{
		
                            if(compareStr.charAt(left)==(compareStr.charAt(right)))
		      {	
				
			right--;
			left++;
		       }
		   else
		       {
		          System.out.print(userStr + " is not a Palindrome.");
		          System.exit(0);
		       }
			
				
		}
	System.out.print(userStr + " is a Palindrome.");
	System.exit(0);
			
			
			
	}
	
	
	
	
	
	
}

[Junky]

compareStr =  compareStr.replaceAll("\\D", "");
System.out.println(">" + compareStr + "<"); //add this line to get your answer

By the way

while(left<right && left!=right)

the second condition is pointless if the first condition is true then the second MUST be true.