formatting date string in cakephp

I'm new to cakephp, I've got a simple Users controller that corresponds to a users table. I have a created field in the table that I want to ouput on the view action using the niceShort() function. how do I use it in the view?

Current code is:

<p>Member since <?php echo $user['User']['created']?></p>

thanks,

Jonesy