ColRay:
My first question is about the power supply can I plug in a 9v battery using the little black port on the bottom left hand side...
Absolutely, see here for some info.. Just be aware that 9V batteries have some drawbacks- they are fairly low capacity and can't supply much current.
ColRay:
...when I purchased the Arduino board I didn't realize it was a pirate copy, when I plug it in shows error message "avrdude verification error; content mismatch" . So I did the right thing and binned it and have now purchased another one that the vendor insures me it's a real Arduino.
Where did you buy it from? The Uno has been around for so long that most clones are functionally indistinguishable from the genuine article.