The resulting geomagnetic storm could be ranked among the most powerful of its kind and last for 24 hours. It is expected to disrupt the communications satellites and high frequency radios.

THANKS FOR THE WARNING BUT ITS NOT Y2K
But let us know when russia launches a ICBM

Its a solar flare, not an EMP.
There is nothing in the article warning about the ability of the storm to fry computers.
The charged particles at most will only disturb electromagnetic fields.

It took out 2 Japanese satellites that could have carried brodband signals

Scientists have shown for the first time that solar flares produce seismic waves in the Sun's interior that resemble those created by earthquakes: They observed a flare-generated solar quake that contained about 40,000 times the energy released in the great 1906 earthquake that devastated San Francisco. (The amount of energy released was enough to power the United States for 20 years at its current level of consumption, and was equivalent to an 11.3 magnitude earthquake.)

"Although the flare was a moderate one, it still released an immense amount of energy," said Dr. Craig Deforest, a researcher with the SOHO project. "The energy released is equal to completely covering the Earth's continents with a yard of dynamite and detonating it all at once."

The solar seismic waves appear to be compression waves like the "P" waves generated by an earthquake. They travel throughout the Sun's interior. In fact, the waves should recombine on the opposite side of the Sun from the location of the flare to create a faint duplicate of the original ripple pattern, Kosovichev predicts.

In Tokyo, Japan's space agency announced the Kodama communications satellite malfunctioned after being affected by the flare. The agency said it was temporarily shut down and would be reactivated after the solar storm subsided.

Using the Square Law formula, and the dissipation that would occur renders this flare as just a mere annoyance, rather than anything serious.

OMG my computer went off during that solar storm....o wait i just tripped over the power cord...carry on.

I thought the thread was worthy of discussion!
Maybe its what is causing all these IE problems lately no wait they already exist