Since you shoot Nikon, you can use ViewNX to batch covert all of your NEF files to JPGs using whatever the camera settings were. The resulting JPGs are nearly identical to what you would get if you shot JPGs in camera. The advantage of this is that you don't need to shoot RAW+JPG unless you really need to get to the images fast (the program is slow), plus you can output higher quality JPGs than you could with your D40, since it doesn't do RAW+JPG Fine/Large. You can also output tiffs 8bit or 16bit, and adjust many of the raw settings like exposure compensation, white balance, color mode, etc. It's not the best RAW processor, but if you want the flexibility of shooting RAW, but still want your images to look exactly like they do on your LCD, it's a good option to consider. Plus it's a free download from Nikon, so it doesn't really hurt to try it as part of your workflow.
http://support.nikontech.com/app/ans...il/a_id/16370/