  Quantum processors which combine the long decoherence times of spin qubits
together with fast optical manipulation of excitons have recently been the
subject of several proposals. I show here that arbitrary single- and entangling
two-qubit gates can be performed in a chain of perpetually coupled spin qubits
solely by using laser pulses to excite higher lying states. It is also
demonstrated that universal quantum computing is possible even if these pulses
are applied {\it globally} to a chain; by employing a repeating pattern of four
distinct qubit units the need for individual qubit addressing is removed. Some
current experimental qubit systems would lend themselves to implementing this
idea.
