Welp, the problem was kinda fixed, but not really.  Whether I use the rightclick menu or the project-> menu, I can get *.m classified as source.  Great!  However, when I add a new *.m to my project it still does not automatically have "compile" and "link" checked.  It gets classified as a source file, but is greyed out and not included in my build until I manually check those boxes!
Sorry if I'm asking questions I should be able to figure out...  it's just that this is the first "real" IDE I've ever used.  I'm from the vi + console windows developer ilk and am just foraying into this full-blown deal so I don't know where I should look.  Where I 
think I should be looking obviously isn't  right  

Thanks again for the help!