Re: controlling LED strips
 

For one color led strip with each led controllable,the digital addressable led strip is OK, such as what I used, 52 Pixel/M LPD8806 Led Strip, instead of RGB color LED, they were made of all WHITE color LEDs as I asked for. The strips are from:
http://greeled.jiayo.net/products/

Re: controlling LED strips
 

AndyMark sells a kit AM-6245 with tri-color LEDs which are individually controllable. This might be an easy solution if you want something closer to off-the-shelf.