I have a 5 port SWITCH (Its better then a Hub but not a Router, so its between the two). Your hub should have a 6 ethernet cable ports, 1 of them is for you cable modem and the other 5 are for your computers (read the manual to figure out which one does which). Before you do all that, install a ethernet card on each computer, with the TCP/IP protocol installed in your network setting under Control Panel. Then you do all the plugins into your hub from you computer. Then you should get a program that does the networking for you. There are lots of programs that can do that for you, i use sygate cuz i use win 98. But if you get winxp or win me ( i think win 2000 too) they will do the networking for you. Which will setup the internet connection and sharing of files (if you want). Try to find a program that can do it for you. This way of networking is called Single NIC. Which uses only one ethernet card on each comp. There is also another way which the server comp uses 2 NIC cards and the client uses only one NIC card, but dont worry about this way, stick with the Single NIC.
BTW, if you want to share files, i think you need the IPX protocal installed too...
If you have anymore questions...plz feel free to ask...