Go to Help -> Debug Window and select the "Console" tab. type "getmininginfo" and press enter, that will tell you your hashes per minute, the current difficulty, the block number etc
That's the easiest way to start mining but its not very efficient, there are several pools that seem to work more or less, they are all new and still have bugs through.
Mining isn't an area of expertise for me, I do bulk buying and selling, escrow transactions.
