Wiki resources
For the do it yourself guy or gal.
If you want to develop your own software you may be able to get this decent LED strip controller. It can handle an RGBW strip, or an RGB strip and a flood
It's an Arduino based board. The Arduino is a great platform to get started in programming for micro controller based electronics. You will find it a cost effective method for "proof of concept" as well. This particular micro control processor is programmed using C++ which some will argue has a high overhead compared to a C based firmware. Then again, I am sure some would argue that C has a high overhead compared to AVR Assembler.