Help with LED Lamp concept.

Oh my head hurts. lol

No really thanks for all the input. I found a course on lynda.com the goes over both just to get you started.

I am going to look over it and see. As far as my plans for programming, well its only for the Arduino. I am Network engineer and IT manager, I have no plans on
Becoming a programmer. This is all just for fun.

I may go over the code I have now and see I can dumb it down so I can finish my Lamp though