Don't struggle with RAW any more, there is a solution:
- Superfast view and choose best RAW shots by ranking: http://www.fastrawviewer.com/. Just download and use all the time. Released 3 days ago, I'm really happy. Very fast.
- Extract JPEG previews from your RAW: http://www.picurl.org/blog/2009/07/18/ultra-fast-raw-to-jpeg-conversion-with-exiv2/. In short, if you are a Nikon-guy, then get exiv2 and typically run exiv2 -ep3 *.NEF on your folder.