Just collecting from below is only mildly effective. A lot of chips blow out the top of the blade as well. It is these top chips which blow around the room and are annoying. When I'm doing alot of sawing I hook up the shopvac to a hood on top of the saw as well as below. This is pretty effective at keeping dust out of the air.

: Thanks to Xmas-and a Sears charge card-I now have a table saw and will begin
: cutting strips soon. The saw has a provision for dust collection,
: basically just a short section of PVC under the table, which I understand
: can be hooked up to a shop vac. I was wondering how effective this is-have
: any of you used this method? I will be doing this in a finished basement
: and need to keep the dust down as much as possible.
: Thanks in advance.