Help please?

I make a lot of icons. I have no life. Generally I'm good at seeing an effect and figuring out how to do it. But recently I have been going nuts trying to recreate an effect I saw, and everytime I do it's just way too choppy. The effect can be viewed *here*. What I'm trying to do is the background effect, the way the light strip goes down. I have PSP7, Animation Shop 3, Photoshop 7, and Imageready 7 (though I need a really in depth tutorial if I have to use Imageready, as I'm still getting the hang of it). Could anyone direct me to a good tutorial for this type of background effect?