#setup build essentials
yum install gcc gdbm-devel readline-devel ncurses-devel zlib-devel bzip2-devel sqlite-devel db4-devel openssl-devel tk-devel bluez-libs-devel
wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.5/Python-2.7.5.tgz
tar zxvf Python-2.7.5.tgz
cd Python-2.7.5
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/python27 --enable-shared
make
altinstall
echo "/usr/local/python27/lib" >> /etc/ld.so.conf.d/usr-python27.conf
su -
ldconfig
exit
ln -s /usr/local/python27/bin/python2.7 /usr/bin/python2.7

#install setuptools 
wget https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.9.8.tar.gz
wget --no-check-certificate https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.9.8.tar.gz
tar zxvf setuptools-0.9.8.tar.gz 
cd setuptools-0.9.8
python2.7 setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local/python27/

#setup virtualenv
/usr/local/python27/bin/easy_install virtualenv

#install pip
curl -O https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pip/pip-1.4.tar.gz
tar zxvf pip-1.4.tar.gz 
cd pip-1.4
python2.7 setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local/python27/

#create and activate virtualenv 
/usr/local/python27/bin/virtualenv /usr/local/python27/env
source /usr/local/python27/env/bin/activate