How do I quickly move between 2 local installations and keep them in sync?

I'm a designer working on my first CMS website. I like to develop on my netbook at the coffee shop, but recently I've been starting to get into graphics heavy content stuff that would be easier to work on, on my desktop.

What's the best way to do this?

My thought process was, that I could install my database on my Dreamhost server, and then work on the actual wordpress and theme stuff locally, having it point to the remote database, and push and pull from git to keep stuff in sync.

But I've been told in other threads that this is a bad idea.

Reconfiguring the database each time seems like a real pain in the ass. And waiting for my Dreamhost server to show changes after every edit and upload to FTP seems like a slow way to work.

I have very little backend experience so I'm trying to find the most straightforward ways of doing this. Any suggestions?