Hi, I am new at this game... been playing for 2days.
I am not sure what i am supposed to be doing.... everything runs so slow even on Fast mode. I understand the tutorial but what are the basics I must do in order for the game to continue?
Eg. It seems forever to gather research points and I expect i need those points to really do anything.
Some hints please?

It takes awhile for for your little band of villagers to become proficient at the basic activities required to survive in their new home. The most important thing to work on at the beginning of the game is making sure that your villagers survive. That will involve gathering and maintaining an ample food supply, making sure that your little people don't succumb to disease, and providing enough housing once the population begins to grow. Only after you have made sure that your tribe's survival is assured should you divert their attention to solving the puzzles.

The berry bush has a limited number of berries and will not feed your villagers for long. There are two other sources of food, but your villagers will have to do some research in order to be able to produce food in new ways. The more villagers you have, the faster they can research new technologies (and solve the puzzles), but having too many mouths to feed can quickly deplete available food supplies and spell disaster for your tribe! The trick is finding the right balance between the two.

I have written a strategy guide for Village Sim which can be accessed from this post. That post contains information on how to obtain everything from hints to outright solutions, and has a link to the strategy guide.

Thanks Barb! I was worried I had to wait til Monday before someone responses. I am determined not to look at your hints ( thank you for kindly pointing them to me), I just would like to know how to accumulate tech points. Do I have to bring a villager to the table and watch him succeed in order that my tech pts can grow? The more I watch the guy the more pts I get?

You don't have to watch them in order to gain research points. Check your villager's details screen and see if they have any skill in research. If they do, they will initiate research on their own and continue to get better at it and produce research points each time they succeed. If they have skill in more than one area, checking the preferred skill box for research will cause them to prefer that activity over the others. If you want to speed up their progress, you can keep dragging them back to the table as soon as they start to walk away.