You can edit files from the command line once connected via SSH, but the question has to be "Why would you want to?".

SSH is useful for certain tasks, but it's complete overkill when it comes to simple file editing ...and some of the settings you mention are stored in the db which you wouldn't edit using Putty.

If you want to keep track of changes and roll them back if you need to, and publish them to your site then you can get yourself a free Subversion account, install Tortoise SVN on your PC, install XAMPP on your PC (local web server) and use that combination to keep an online Repository of your site files, edit them offline and Commit them to the Repository and Publish them to your website from there. You'd use XAMPP to test the changes locally before committing.

Vger