UPE (Upsilon Pi Epsilon - a computer science honor society) has some good information. Check out their Survival Guide. (They also offer tutoring).
A more complete look at the make utility can be found at UC SanDiego's site here.
A good simple explanation of the g++ compiler here.
My explanation of compiling on our Unix boxes and using make and Makefile.
This is a pretty good online gude to the C++ language: cpluscplus.com or right to their reference guide: