I finally found a friend with an answer for the defines. This is what he said:
In the Build settings tab of the Project Info or Target Info screens, edit the "Preprocessor Macros" setting. Don't include the -D, just the MACRO=value part. If you do it in the Project settings, it will apply to all targets in the project. If you edit the target settings it will apply to just that target.
Be sure to set the right configuration (Debug or Release, or pick All Configurations) depending on what you are trying to do.