Samsung Captivate :: Dialing A Contact Using Fewer Keystrokes

It might sound lazy, but I am looking for a better/faster way (other than voice, which only works in quiet areas) to dial someone in my contacts. I am coming from BlackBerry, where I used to tap out the first few letters in the first OR last name and it would quickly narrow to the desired contact. Then click 'send.Each of these can take several or many "keystrokes." Also, for some reason if I type several keystrokes of a first or last name, it only recognizes a name if that contact happens to be indexed according to that part of name. For example, if John Doe is indexed as Doe, John, then typing out J-O-H...does not bring up John Doe. But for some crazy reason the indexing for my contacts got screwed up so half of them are sorted by first name and the other half by last name (so changing the Options settings doesn't get them all indexed correctly). Also because there are so many choices (using Contacts, using the dialer, using the search box on the homescreen, etc.) there isn't just one clear best way.