Programmable controller for LED 5050 strip lights

I am hoping someone can help with this:

I have purchased some RGB 5050 strip lights. I am hoping to find an inexpensive way to program the lights to do the following sequence for 4th of July.

1. Start with RED lights.
2. Then go to WHITE lights.
3. Then go to BLUE lights.
4. Then repeat the sequence at 1.

It would be great if the transition was done by a somewhat fast fading of jump between colors.

I am trying to add some outside light effect for the 4th of July.

Can someone suggest an item which will do this for me? Of course on the cheap....I have looked at controllers on eBay but I am not sure if they will do what I want.

Thank you

Try searching for "Arduino"; they are "user friendly" USB-interfaced microcontroller boards that let you readily code up whatever you want to do (within reason). You can find them for about $10 nowadays. Lots and lots of forums and tutorials out there, should be pracically copy and paste for what you want to achieve.
Probably need an additional couple of bucks worth of external components or "shields" (add-on boards) to handle the power required for the strips.

First, thank you for replying.

I hope you don't mind helping me some more Can you tell me how these items work and how do they work with 5050 strip lights sold on eBay.

Wes

I'm not really an Arduino person, got one kicking around somewhere in the garage which I haven't touched in years, so not the best person to ask. arduino.cc is probably a good place to start, plenty of forums and examples over there, eg this seems kinda similar to your request: http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php/topic,55390.0.html

Try googling something like "arduino 5050 rgb PWM", should get you started. "PWM" is "Pulse Width Modulation", it's what you'd use for fading effects, basically really fast on/off switching, the ratio of on to off gives you how bright it appears.
The thing is, these 5050 strips are made to run off 12V and a fair amount of current (don't know how much off-hand), which the Arduino's aren't capable of supplying; you'll just blow it up if you try using it directly. You'll need three fast electronic switches with anough voltage / current rating, which the Arduino can control; something like a "MOSFET" of some sort. One for each colour line (red, green, blue). Or you can experiment first buy getting a single RGB LED and plugging it directly into the arduino, it can handle that much current but not much more.