To control the display i use something called Light O Rama. With this I can tell the lights when to turn on, off, fade up or down, twinkle, shimmer, or dimmed to a certain level. There are thousands of different effect combinations.
Basic Setup
These are the 2 controllers I use:
I have 32 channels (16 on each box).
What you need to get started.
Here is the software used to control it. When one of the little squares is lit, it turns on that light.